EZchip discloses product details of NP-5 200-gigabit network processor

YOKNEAM, ISRAEL: EZchip Semiconductor Ltd, a leader in Ethernet network processors, is disclosing product details of its NP-5 network processor. NP-5 is a 200-Gigabit network processor (NPU) with integrated 200-Gigabit traffic management for building ultra-dense 10GE, 40GE and 100GE port line cards in switches and routers.

The NP-5, currently in design, will provide a natural scale-up path for customers that use EZchip’s NP-4 100-Gigabit processor. NP-4 has secured design wins among most of the leading Carrier Ethernet Switch Router (CESR) equipment vendors and NP-5 has already started to gain important wins among these customers. EZchip will present the NP-5 at the Linley Tech Carrier Conference, June 7-8, 2011 in San Jose, California.

The NP-5 extends the integration of NP-4 to further solidify EZchip’s high-speed NPU market leadership, by offering unprecedented 200-Gigabit programmable packet processing and traffic management in a single chip. Furthermore, the NP-5 provides full backward code compatibility with the NP-4 offering customers a smooth path to double their line-card bandwidth and port density with minimal software efforts. While the NP-4, which is manufactured in a 55nm process, is scheduled to move to mass production in the second half of 2011, the NP-5 will be manufactured in a 28nm process and is scheduled to sample at the end of 2012.

“As the industry’s first disclosed 200Gbps network processor, the NP-5 reinforces EZchip’s technology and market leadership,” said Bob Wheeler, senior analyst at The Linley Group. “The NP-5 also demonstrates the scalability of EZchip’s architecture, which now spans a huge range of price/performance points.”

“Through technological innovations and optimized architecture, the NP-5 continues our push to provide solutions that enable customers to multiply the port count and bandwidth as well as enhance the functionality of their line cards, while reducing their overall cost,” said Amir Eyal, VP, Business Development of EZchip. “Our customers view the NP-5 as the natural progression of their NP-4 based CESR platforms. As with NP-4, we believe the NP-5 will provide a significant time to market advantage over alternative solutions as our customers will be able to reuse their massive NP-4 software investments.”

The NP-5 will provide unprecedented integration and enable building routers and switches for Carrier Ethernet networks as well as data centers with exceptional density and functionality. The NP-5 will enable line cards that feature multiple 40 and 100-Gigabit ports as well as dozens of 10-Gigabit ports. Through its versatility and rich feature set, the NP-5 will serve a wide variety of carrier and data center applications.