CAVIUM 
By SAN JOSE, CA, Aug 02, 2011 (MARKETWIRE via COMTEX) --
Cavium, Inc. (NASDAQ: CAVM), a leading provider of semiconductor products that enable intelligent processing for networking, communications, and the digital home, today announced its new game-changing NEURON Search(TM) Processor family targeted at a wide range of high performance, L2-L4 Network Search applications in Enterprise and Service Provider Infrastructure equipment. This new family includes the NEURON Search(TM) and NEURONMAX Search(TM) product lines with support for both IPv4 and IPv6 rules and delivers 100 million to over 1.6 billion searches per second with guaranteed low latency. The NEURON Search family delivers up to 4x the capacity per chip enabling the replacement of four existing state-of-the-art 40 Mbit TCAMs, while the NEURONMAX Search family enables virtually unlimited expansion at less than half the power consumption while dramatically slashing the cost, making them ideal for a wide range of Enterprise, Data Center and Wired/Wireless Service Provider applications.
Discrete high-performance Search Processors and TCAMs are typically used for layer 2 to layer 4 lookups in higher-end Edge and Core Equipment where packet lookup requirements are greater than 50 million searches per second. Two main trends in the networking and communication market are fueling the increased need for higher performance search capabilities. First, the transition from IPv4 addresses to the longer and much more complex IPv6 addresses. Second, the sheer explosion of traffic created by new mobile and social applications is driving 100Gbps port rates and also driving high-capacity line cards. According to the Cisco Visual Networking Index (VNI), by the end of 2015, annual global IP traffic will increase four-fold from 2010, video traffic will increase 32-fold and mobile traffic will increase 26-fold. The Linley Group forecasts that these drivers will push the market for search processor silicon to greater than $550 million in 2015.
Expensive, power hungry legacy TCAMs and low performance algorithmic search processors until now have slowed the potential wider adoption of search technology. Cavium researchers took a completely different approach and developed breakthrough search technology using a range of mathematical and neural pattern recognition concepts that remove many of the critical constraints. Additionally, Cavium search technology sets the bar for silicon efficiency, improving up to 2x the number of rules that can be stored per unit area, leading to lower power and cost. This new cost power metric will drive wider adoption of search technology.
"Cavium is bringing breakthrough search technology to networking OEMs," said Jag Bolaria, senior analyst at The Linley Group. "Compared with TCAMs currently in production, the NEURON Search Processor quadruples the capacity while the NEURONMAX Search family extends the capacity further. System designers will appreciate the lower power of these devices as well as having another established supplier of search processors."
NEURON Search Processor Family Overview
The NEURON Search Processor family consists of two silicon product lines that connect to a wide range of NPUs/ASICs including Cavium's OCTEON II processors using a variety of serial and parallel IO interfaces such as the industry standard high bandwidth Interlaken/LA interface.
-- The NEURON Search Processor CNSP1XXX product line offers 100 million
to 1.6 billion searches per second with enough capacity and guaranteed
low latency in a single chip to replace four of the highest density 40
Mb TCAM parts available in the market today. This product line is
targeted at Enterprise, Data Center & Service Provider
Infrastructure applications.
-- The NEURONMAX Search Processor CNSP2XXX product line enables seamless
expansion of rule capacity through external DDR3 memory to 20x of the
NEURON Search Processor family while retaining footprint
compatibility, and is ideal for applications in target markets that
require further future-proofing for a very large number of table
entries.
Tremendous flexibility has been provided in storing rules and specifying rule table formats and a simple, easy to use SDK is provided for configuration, real-time updates and management. The ease-of-use of this utility is in sharp contrast to the complex management software needed for TCAMs today and will help OEMs in rapidly integrating these products into their product lines. The software interface for all product families is identical thereby providing a highly scalable and software compatible solution.
Availability Hardware design collateral including data sheet, pin out and Software Development Kit (SDK) are available now. SDK includes compiler, simulator and real-time rule update manager. Both the NEURON Search and NEURONMAX Search product lines will be available in Q1 2012. Please contact your Cavium sales representative for additional details.
About Cavium Cavium is a leading provider of highly integrated semiconductor products that enable intelligent processing in networking, communications, and the digital home. Cavium offers a broad portfolio of integrated, software-compatible processors ranging in performance from 100 Mbps to 40+ Gbps that enable secure, intelligent functionality in enterprise, data-center, broadband/consumer, access and service provider equipment. Cavium processors are supported by ecosystem partners that provide a wide range of application software, operating systems, tool support, reference designs and other services. Cavium's principal offices are in San Jose, CA with design team locations in California, Massachusetts, India, China and Taiwan. For more information, please visit: http://www.cavium.com.
Note on Forward-Looking Statements This press release may contain forward-looking statements regarding future events that involve risks and uncertainties. Readers are cautioned that these forward-looking statements are only predictions and may differ materially from actual future events or results. These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties, as well as assumptions and current expectations. Our actual results and the timing of events could differ materially from those anticipated in such forward-looking statements as a result of these risks, uncertainties and assumptions. The risks and uncertainties that could cause our results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements include but are not limited to the rate of new design wins, acceptance by customers of our new product introductions, our new products meeting specifications without defects or failures, pricing pressures, general economic conditions, manufacturing difficulties, and other risks and uncertainties described more fully in our documents filed with or furnished to the Securities and Exchange Commission. More information about these and other risks that may impact Cavium's business are set forth in the "Risk Factors" section of our Form 10K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on February 28, 2011. All forward-looking statements in this press release are based on information available to us as of the date hereof and qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement, and we assume no obligation to revise or update these forward-looking statements.
Cavium Contact Angel Atondo Sr. Marketing Communications Manager Tel: (408) 943-7417 Email: angel.atondo@cavium.com
SOURCE: Cavium, Inc.
mailto:angel.atondo@cavium.com
