SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- Bearing the first fruit from its acquisition of Basis Communications Corp., semiconductor giant Intel Corp. here today announced two service-specific network processor lines for low-cost Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) applications.
The new chips, called the IXP220 and IXP225, are designed for use in host-processing functions in DSL modems, customer-premise equipment, low-end routers, residential gateways, and related products, said Steve Price, general manager of integrated access products in Intel's Network Products Division.
The IXP220 is geared for data-only applications in DSL equipment, while the IXP225 is targeted for both voice and data protocols, Price said. "Our products are geared for the last mile in DSL networks," Prices said in an interview with SBN. "These chips are also geared for multi-user voice and data environments."
The chips were originally developed by Fremont-based Basis Communications, a spin-off of Cirrus Logic Inc. Earlier this year, Intel acquired Basis--a spin-off from Cirrus Logic Inc.--for about $450 million in stock (see March 21 story). At present, Intel sells three types of network-processor products. At the low-end of the
market, the company offers service-specific chips for DSL networks, which are developed by the former Basis operation.
In the mid-range to high-end markets, it sells a family of products based on its StrongArm RISC processor series. And at the carrier-class level, it offers a line of chips that run at transmission speeds of up to OC-12 (2.5-gigabit-per-second).
Both the IXP220 and IXP225 consists of several components on the same device, including Arm Ltd.'s ARM7 RISC processor core, two on-chip co-processors, an Ethernet-based media-access controller (MAC), SRAM controller, expansion bus, and Utopia interface.
The ARM7 handles the host-processing functions in DSL networks, while the two co-processors support various wide-area networking protocols. Both the co-processors themselves are based on a proprietary RISC architecture, which can be programmed via micro-code.
The first co-processor supports either data-only or voice/data applications. In voice/data applications,
the co-processor supports DSL over asynchronous transfer mode (ATM). Meanwhile, the second co-processor supports Ethernet, Fast Ethernet, filtering, discarding, encryption, and other functions.
The IXP220 and IXP225 sell for $25 each. The devices, which are sampling, come in a 160-pin MQFP packages. They are manufactured on a foundry basis by IBM Inc.'s Microelectronics Division.
