NetLogic intros industry’s most advanced multi-core processor for LTE eNodeB/base stations

Mobile World Congress 2011, SANTA CLARA, USA: NetLogic Microsystems Inc. announced the XLP316L multi-core processor, the newest member of its industry-leading XLP processor family, which is optimized for next-generation Long Term Evolution (LTE) and LTE-Advanced base stations.

The global deployment of LTE mobile services is driving a dramatic increase in performance requirements for base station processors. For example, LTE eNodeB/base stations require 10-20x higher throughput, 10x lower latency and 10x higher control-plane signaling performance compared to third-generation WCDMA/HSPA base stations.

NetLogic Microsystems’ innovative XLP316L processor is ideally suited to address the dramatic performance requirements of LTE base stations by combining the powerful XLP processor core featuring quad-issue, quad-threading and superscalar out-of-order execution with a high-performance floating point unit and a low latency tri-level cache architecture to deliver significant data plane and control plane performance.

In addition, the XLP316L integrates advanced wireless security technologies to
support SNOW3G and KASUMI protocols, multiple lanes of Serial Rapid I/O (SRIO) interfaces, and IEEE 1588v2 hardware time stamping for Ethernet backhaul timing synchronization, thereby further enhancing the performance, flexibility and functionality of the multi-core processor for LTE applications.

NetLogic Microsystems’ XLP316L multi-core processor integrates sixteen NXCPUs, and features a breakthrough quad-issue, quad-threaded and superscalar out-of-order processor architecture capable of operating at up to 2.0GHz. The XLP316L processor will be manufactured in the advanced 40nm process, and is targeted to offer unparalleled performance of 20Gbps and 30 million packets-per-second (Mpps) for converged data plane and control plane processing in LTE and LTE-Advanced base stations.

In addition, the sixteen NXCPUs are fully cache and memory coherent for software applications to seamlessly run in Symmetric Multi Processing (SMP) or Asymmetric Multi Processing (AMP) modes. The unique combination of superior processor cores and scalability to sixteen NXCPUs makes the XLP316L the industry's highest performance multi-core communications processor for original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) developing next-generation LTE mobile infrastructure.

“Building upon our strong leadership position in 3.5G base stations, we are further separating ourselves from the competition by introducing the industry’s most advanced, high performance multi-core processor for next-generation 4G LTE and LTE-Advanced base stations,” said Chris O’Reilly, vice president of marketing at NetLogic Microsystems. “Our new XLP316L multi-core processor is the only quad-issue, quad-threaded processor with superscalar out-of-order execution capabilities that are uniquely suited to address the most demanding needs of LTE mobile infrastructure.”

“After introducing its XLP processor family last year—which we estimate delivers 2x - 4x the performance of competing chips at similar clock speeds—NetLogic Microsystems’ new XLP316L is a powerful new processor for the LTE eNodeB market,” said Tom R. Halfhill, senior analyst at The Linley Group. “With four CPU cores, it has strong performance, and it integrates the right set of I/O interfaces. We expect the XLP316L to deliver more throughput than competing quad-core processors when operating at similar clock speeds and power levels.”

The XLP316L processor features NetLogic Microsystems' high-speed, low-latency Enhanced Fast Messaging Network to enable efficient, high-bandwidth communication among the sixteen NXCPUs and to support billions of in-flight messages and packet descriptors between all on-chip elements. The XLP316L multi-core processor offers a tri-level cache architecture with over 6 Mbytes of fully coherent on-chip cache which delivers 40 Tbps of extremely high-speed on-chip memory bandwidth. The XLP316L processor also incorporates one channel of 72-bit DDR3 interconnect that yields over 100 Gbps of off-chip memory bandwidth.

To complement the sixteen NXCPUs, the XLP316L processor offers fully-autonomous processing engines that provide independent and complete offload of certain network functions from the NXCPUs, including 10Gbps of encryption/decryption/authentication including support for Kasumi and SNOW3G protocols that are required for mobile infrastructure, ingress/egress packet parsing and management, packet ordering, TCP segmentation offload and IEEE 1588 hardware time stamping.