 networkZONE Products for the week of April 30, 2007
Ikanos Communications Says…
Fast Integrated VDSL2 Gateway Processor
2.7 GHz Fusiv Vx180 supports growing demand for mMulti-mode VDSL2/ADSL2+ residential gateways
Ikanos Communications, Inc. has introduced the Fusiv Vx180, the industry's fastest integrated VDSL2 gateway processor. The Vx180 single chip, multi-mode VDSL2 gateway processor provides 2.7 GHz of processing power, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), multi-mode DSL and security, while supporting best-in-class Quality of Service (QoS) and wire speed performance.
"Residential gateways are no longer considered a simple broadband access device. As quadruple-play services become more prevalent in today's households, subscribers will need residential gateways that can handle the different QoS requirements for voice, data and video, while maintaining the security of the subscribers' home network," said Aileen Arcilla, senior research analyst at IDC.
The Vx180 is designed to enable the development of a high performance, integrated residential gateway platform for multi-play applications. The Vx180 reduces space and power requirements by combining Ikanos' industry leading VDSL2 customer premises equipment (CPE) PHY and its widely deployed Fusiv network processor architecture onto a single chip. Ikanos' field-proven physical layer technology supports VDSL2, ADSL2+, ADSL2, ADSL and VDSL standards, and supports IPTV and triple-play optimized features such as Dynamic Rate Repartitioning (DRR) and Seamless Rate Adaptation (SRA), which are expected to be incorporated into future standards enhancements. The Vx180 also supports maximum interleaver and deinterleaver memory for high levels of Impulse Noise Protection, as well as on-chip Quality of Service (QoS) and wire speed performance, all of which is intended to enable optimum viewing experience.
The Vx180:
- Supports all VDSL2 profiles - 8a, 8b, 8c, 8d, 12a, 12b, 17a and 30a - as well as VDSL, ADSL2+, ADSL2 and ADSL standards, and is optimized for 17.6 and 30 MHz spectrums;
- Supports all mandatory and optional features of VDSL2, as well as all band plans that are defined by Asian, European and North American standards groups;
- Provides 2.7 GHz of processing power in order to support CPU-intensive features, like 802.11n, and still have additional processing power for current and future applications;
- Achieves wire speed performance across all local area network (LAN) and wide area network (WAN) interfaces using Ikanos' unique Accelerator Processor architecture;
- Offers a rich set of integrated peripherals and interfaces that easily integrate with home networking technologies, like 802.11n, MoCA and HomePNA;
- Enables IPSec and Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) VPN implementation using on-chip cryptographic engines; and
- Delivers comprehensive support for VoIP with a deployment-proven integrated Digital Signal Processor (DSP).
"Ikanos enables carriers to cost effectively and effortlessly provide a wide array of services with its industry leading gateway processors and VDSL2 chips," said Ahmed Selmani, managing director, broadband and residential terminals business unit at Sagem Communication. "The Fusiv Vx180 chipset combines the highest level of performance, integration and flexibility, which allows us to meet the demanding requirements for next generation residential gateways. With these advanced features, our residential gateways will have a distinct advantage in the marketplace."
Ikanos also provides a suite of Vx180 support software that includes operating system independent drivers for Ethernet, xDSL and integrated peripherals. The Linux-based software includes a networking stack, voice processing and network management functions, making it possible for system vendors to quickly develop residential gateways.
"Once again Ikanos is at the forefront of innovation with this highly-integrated platform, which is designed to enable service providers to launch next generation services," said Dean Westman, vice president and general manager for Ikanos' Gateway Products Group. "The price/performance and power of the Vx180 combine to give service providers an economical and effortless means to deploy high performance, feature-rich residential gateways into high density applications."
EN-Genius Says . . .
The introduction of Ikanos highly-integrated Vx180, VDSL2 modem/gateway processor is a sign of how much the market has matured. CPE makers are faced with a double-edged challenge to provide multi-service-capable products that help boost their revenues while keeping their equipment costs under control. The Vx180 and its companion Vx170 PON product already introduced, meet this challenge by combining Ikanos deep broadband know-how with a radical processor architecture that delivers enough value that it should make its competitors nervous -- even the really great CPE silicon from Conexant, Cavium, PMC and TI, reviewed recently.
 At first glance, the Ikanos design follows the standard recipe for an integrated gateway chip by bundling their well-respected VDSL2 data pump with a processor that handles data plane, control plane and application layer tasks. A closer look reveals that the Vx180 Fusiv processor makes a clean break from traditional multi-core and multi-thread approaches with a very powerful hybrid architecture that offers a tremendous amount of processing power for the amount of power and silicon it consumes.
The Fusiv processor consists of a MIPS 24 k RISC CPU that's tightly-coupled to a series of specialized cores to handle specific tasks (see Fig. 1). Each of the six accelerator cores has a Harvard-style processor with unique logic for the particular task it handles, For example, the PCI accelerator core handles all descriptors, interrupt processing, and handshake overhead for data transfers to and from the WAN and LAN interfaces without any help from the control processor. Likewise, the security engine provides full offload/termination (not just acceleration) for SSL and IPSEC VPNs without ever bothering the main processor. The buffer manager block is an easy-to-miss but vital element that keeps the host free of having to think about queueing and latency management for outgoing packets. It supports WRR, WFQ, class-based queuing, and other algorithms and can handle multiple parallel queues.
 Of course simply having a bunch of cores flailing around in your chip does not ensure all their processing power can be put to productive use. Having each accelerator core equipped with its own local program and data memory (12 kbyte program, 4 kbyte data) is one of several things that make the Vx180 processor element relatively immune to the performance-robbing resource conflicts so common in some multi-core/multi-thread designs. Ikanos processor design streamlines things even further by having physically separate paths for the control and data plane flow so that, in most applications, the MIPS control processor sets up data flow, gives the cores the rules for processing the flow, and then gets out of the way.
The same bypass strategy is applied to VoIP with a dedicated voice engine that can drive up to four analog PCM codecs for FXS/POTS service (see Fig. 2). An alternate FXO interface provides analog lifeline fallback. If the voice traffic is destined for IP phones it is passed on to either the Ethernet or USB interface. If you need to support more than two ports worth of Ethernet, Ikanos reference design specifies a Taiwanese Marvell-look-like from IC Plus, but the Vx180 can be used with nearly any low-cost L2 switch silicon. Despite all the processing power and features it delivers, the Vx180 consumes under 2.5 W, including its external AFE chip.
 With the accelerator cores taking care of nearly all of the data path tasks, most of the RISC engine 500 MHz worth of processing power is available to support whatever applications you want to pile on it. Ikanos provides a solid Linux-based software platform for the basic IP and voice services that Ikanos provides, as well as third-party applications such as DVR, picture/file sharing, gaming, IP TV, and remote storage (see Fig. 3).
Actually, depending on the tools and OS you're already using you can pick from three different ways to build up the software to support your design. For developers already up to speed with Linux, it allows a developer to run with Ikanos Linux RG software or drop into an existing Linux system without disturbing any existing applications you've developed. For those already married to another RTOS or tool set, the BSP (board support package) toolkit allows any OS that's been ported to the Fusive RISC engine to access their pre-developed lower-layer drivers, boot code, DSP code, security functions, etc through their API layer.
On the whole it looks like Ikanos has a very innovative way to implement CPE products that support any sort of advanced service that today's broadband pipes can deliver. Since the VDSL modem used in the gateway has proven itself already, my only concerns here lie with the novel architecture of the Fusiv computing core. Given the complexity of this chip and the relatively small size of the Ikanos design team, the possibility that the early spin of the chips will have a few bugs, or not be fully functional, is a bit higher than with a more heavily-staffed company.
But given their solid recent history of delivering on their promises, I'd guess that the majority of risk lies in how well the programming tools allow application development and integration of heritage software with the Ikanos platform. And since Ikanos is relatively new to the gateway portion of the broadband market, I'm not 100% sure that their QoS, SLA and other traffic management algorithms will be fully mature in their first incarnation. During my briefing, Ikanos had all the right answers to my questions, but only time and users' experiences will tell if the software tools live up to their promises.
If the Vx180 tools and software prove to be as good as the chip they run on, companies like Broadcom, Cavium, TI and PMC had better be checking their rearview mirrors for something coming up behind them in a big hurry.
The Vx180 is available in sample quantities now. The two-chip set is $25 - $30 in 10-k piece lots.
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