EZchip samples NPA network processors for carrier access apps

YOKNEAM, ISRAEL: EZchip Semiconductor Ltd, a fabless semiconductor company providing Ethernet network processors, announced that it is sampling to customers the NPA, its new family of network processors targeting Ethernet access applications.

Several models of the NPA network processors are offered with combinations of 1-Gigabit and 10-Gigabit Ethernet ports, at an aggregate throughput of 10-Gigabits, with power dissipation ranging from 6 to 10 Watts and at varying price points starting at under $100.

The NPA provides the highest performance programmable solution for access nodes, with the utmost integration, with low power dissipation and at attractive price points. It has already been selected for use by Tier-1 vendors in a variety of applications.

The NPA is a scale-down of EZchip’s high-speed network processors (NPUs), and brings high performance Carrier Ethernet applications to the access market. The NPA is software compatible with EZchip’s high-speed network processors.

With this latest addition to its product portfolio, EZchip provides network equipment vendors with a common architecture and an easy path to reuse their designs across all their edge, metro and access systems.

To complement the NPA, EZchip will soon make available to its customers production-level code for a variety of applications, which will help them expedite their products’ time-to-market and simplify their development efforts.

NPA is manufactured in a 90 nanometer silicon process and is available in lead or lead-free packages (RoHS compliant), and commercial or industrial temperature grades.

“The NPA addresses the transition of carrier access networks from ATM/TDM to Ethernet, along with the ever-increasing demand for bandwidth at the access,” said Eli Fruchter, President and CEO of EZchip Technologies.

“EZchip is the only chip vendor to offer a complete line of network processors, with throughputs ranging from 1-Gigabit to 100-Gigabits, and having a common architecture and software for the carrier edge, metro and access markets. The NPA effectively doubles our addressable market and we believe that it will evolve to be another major growth driver for us in the coming years.”