Vitesse drives innovation for evolving SP and enterprise environments

MPLS & ETHERNET WORLD CONGRESS 2010, CAMARILLO, USA: Driven by explosive changes in consumer lifestyles, access to real-time entertainment and technology advances, communication service providers and Enterprises are entering the second decade of the 21st century with a radically different network converging on IP and Ethernet.

Vitesse Semiconductor Corp. is responding to these shifts with a portfolio of products uniquely designed to ease the transition to Carrier Ethernet in core, metropolitan, access and edge networks, and to drive energy savings and capacity enhancements in Enterprise and data center networks.

Vitesse expanded its research and development staff by 15 percent in the past year, even in the midst of a global downturn, to prepare a suite of more than 30 products bringing higher performance to the Enterprise and new carrier features to the public network.

Boasting a 25-year history of providing industry-leading Carrier and Enterprise networking IC solutions, Vitesse’s new products address such needs as the transition of current circuit-switched traffic to Ethernet packet switching, the need for accurate timing for packet networks, and the need to reduce energy consumption and shift to 40G and 100G networks.

After 18 months of restrained capital expenditure, carrier and data center markets alike are poised for significant growth in 2010 and beyond. Enterprise and data center expansion is driven by the unprecedented demands from specialized aggregators such as Google, Microsoft, and Facebook, and emerging cloud computing applications.

For wireline and wireless service providers, growth is driven by capacity and price pressures caused by new broadband client devices and smart phones with rich data and video capabilities, accelerating the transition from TDM circuit networks of the past to a cost-effective, yet carrier-grade, unified IP/Ethernet environment.

Meeting new Carrier Ethernet demands
Vitesse’s years of experience in providing ICs for the carrier market and participation in standards bodies such as Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF) and the ITU uniquely enables the Company to address these needs.

For example, Vitesse is implementing stringent network timing features based on Synchronous Ethernet and the IEEE-1588 Precision Timing Protocol in its Media Access Controllers (MACs), switches, and physical layer (PHY) products. Vitesse provides carriers the flexibility of unifying Ethernet transport using the bridging methods defined in Provider Backbone Bridging (PBB) or the Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS, MPLS-TP) standards. Vitesse also gives carriers the choice of either working with Ethernet-over-SONET/SDH architectures as a transition, or moving directly to Carrier Ethernet.

Enterprise and data center Ethernet innovations
For enterprise networks used in server and storage clusters as well as in more traditional Ethernet switch topologies, Vitesse’s new portfolio of PHY and switch products covers both unmanaged and managed applications delivering higher integration and a rich feature set.

The new features include support for Energy Efficient Ethernet, audio video bridging, and enhanced security. Vitesse is deploying the second generation of its popular EcoEthernet technology for energy savings in switches and PHYs, along with a new class of low-power signal integrity and physical layer devices to enable upgrades to backplane speeds and card densities for data center and blade server applications.

The product families being introduced in 2010 mix integration levels and feature sets to address various price points and equipment sizes for both Carrier and Enterprise networks. Different devices will combine physical-layer circuits, MACs, switches, and optical transport network (OTN) mappers including advanced forward error correction (FEC) algorithms.

Physical interfaces will support both optical and copper media, addressing the different needs of specific sectors within both public and private networks. As a result, Vitesse customers can reuse software across multiple Carrier and Enterprise product lines accelerating time-to-market and saving costs.

Product introductions planned in 2010 include:
* High-density PHYs for 10G/40G/100G optical and backplane applications;
* High-density 10G OTN Mappers/PHYs for the Carrier wavelength-division-multiplexed (WDM) Metro and Core;
* 40G/100G FEC devices for the Carrier Core;
* 1/10 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) Carrier Ethernet switches and MACs for carrier and metro aggregation including wireless backhaul;
* GbE Carrier Ethernet access switches for wireless/microwave backhaul edge applications and base stations;
* 12/24-port GbE Enterprise Layer 2 switches for small-medium enterprise (SME)/small-medium business (SMB);
* Energy-Efficient Ethernet physical-layer PHYs for copper and fiber.

“The broad portfolio of products planned for introduction in 2010 indicate Vitesse’s commitment to both the emerging Carrier Ethernet market for service-provider equipment and particularly to the wireless access market, and the expanding enterprise market for high-speed data center backbones and cloud computing,” said Martin Nuss, chief technical officer for Vitesse.

“Vitesse can meet the backbone needs of next-generation Enterprise and data center equipment, while offering devices for service provider equipment that solve the access challenges of an increasingly wireless world with unique Carrier Ethernet features not found elsewhere.”

Vitesse will introduce the first of its new Ethernet products, the Jaguar family of Carrier Ethernet MACs and switches at MPLS & Ethernet World Congress 2010.