Cavium Networks Introduces ECONA Family of Super Energy Efficient ARM-Based System-on-Chip (SoC) Processors for the Digital Home That Break the 1 Watt Barrier

-- Bandwidth for Internet access continues to increase relentlessly with high-performance wired and wireless access. Service Providers and CE manufacturers are utilizing these high bandwidth links to enable services such as Video on Demand, VoIP, Video Conferencing, HD multimedia interactivity and 100Mbps to 1Gbps of data connectivity. Supporting these new services require high performance and programmable Internet-connected gateways and devices that can support processor-intensive tasks such as network packet processing, video and image processing, storage processing, wireless access and security. The ECONA CNS3XXX family delivers these compute intensive tasks with industry-leading performance / watt and performance / dollar.

“Service Providers are already planning to deploy gateway-based services such as media storage, parental controls and premium technical support. Headroom for performance and power-consumption on the gateway are very critical for them to expand these service offerings,” said Kurt Scherf, Vice President and Principal Analyst with Parks Associates. “The ECONA CNS3XXX family incorporates Cavium’s winning strategy by offering high-performance general purpose computing and dedicated hardware acceleration in an extremely low power and cost profile to adequately meet the critical cost and energy needs of the service providers.”

ECONA CNS3XXX SoC Processor Family Features

• High Performance ARM11 MPCore™ Processors and Caches
• Superscalar, ARM11 MPCore™ processors operating at up to 700MHz, each with 32KB I-cache, 32KB D-cache and a large 256KB L2 cache to provide over 1400 Dhrystone MIPS (DMIPS). Each ARM11 MPCore™ processor comes with instruction set extensions for Digital Signal Processing (DSP) and Media Processing, and integrates a Vector Floating Point unit (VFP) and Memory Management Unit (MMU). The cores also incorporate advanced JazelleTM technology from ARM that significantly enhances the performance of Java applets running on the CNS3XXX family. The high performance cores combined with large caches deliver non-blocking, wire-speed performance for voice, video and data applications. DSP extensions on the ARM11 MPCore™ processors drive enhanced voice applications including support for wideband codecs, DECT and advanced call control features such as conferencing.
• Over 10 Application Acceleration Engines to deliver maximum performance
• Industry’s most advanced acceleration engines include a packet switch for wire-speed switching, Hardware-based NAT and QoS engine, TCP offload, Packet Processing Engine (PPE) for wire-speed packet processing, Content Inspection Engine for L7 application processing and filtering, RAID 5/6 XOR engine, 2D graphics engine with an integrated LCD controller, and a security engine for high-performance IPSec, SSL, Intrusion Prevention and Anti-Virus processing. Acceleration for the popular standards-compliant video codecs is also supported.
•  High-bandwidth, low-latency integrated Memory, System and Networking Interfaces
• Intelligent x16/x32-bit, 800MHz DDR2 memory controller, three Ethernet MAC interfaces supporting RGMII/GMII/ MII, Dual USB2.0 / SATA2 / PCIe - all with integrated PHYs, TDM/PCM, LCD interface, SDIO, Camera Interface and a host of system interfaces including GPIO, SPI, UART, I2S and I2C.
• Super low power starting at under 1 watt
• Integrated Power Management Unit (PMU) enables multiple power-saving modes during operation including Wake-On-LAN support, dynamic control of CPU power per core, automatic shut down of logic that is not operational and other modes for a total of six (6) different power saving profiles. On-chip voltage regulators enhance the effectiveness of this PMU to result in very low power consumption for the CNS3XXX family. Power consumption ranges from under 1 watt for the single core version to less than 2.5 watts for the highest end dual-core version.

“The CNS3XXX family delivers market leading performance and features at extremely attractive power and cost points,” said Sandeep Vij, VP and GM of Broadband and Consumer Division at Cavium Networks. “The latest addition to the ECONA family will enable our customers to drive the next wave of consumer and broadband applications in the digital home and connected office.”

Software Development Kit

The ECONA CNS3XXX Software Development Kit (SDK) builds upon the existing OCTEON and OCTEON Plus SDK and includes Linux SMP, GNU Toolchain, Simple Executive for fast path applications, performance tools, simulator, feature rich APIs for hardware acceleration and an extensive set of reference applications. To accelerate customer development Cavium also offers production ready software toolkits and multi-core software architecture and design consulting services.

Pricing and Availability

The ECONA CNS3XXX processor family consists of multiple models to meet the performance, features, price and power requirements of different target markets. The processor family offers core clock speeds ranging from 300MHz to 700MHz with single- and dual-core configurations. Package options range from 27mm x 27mm and 15mm x 15mm Ball Grid Array (BGA) package to low-cost Lead Quad Flat Pack (LQFP). The CNS3420 (dual-core) and CNS3410 (single-core) will sample in Q4 2009. Pricing information is available upon request.

About Cavium Networks

Cavium Networks is a leading provider of highly integrated semiconductor products that enable intelligent processing in networking, communications, storage, wireless and video applications. Cavium Networks offers a broad portfolio of integrated, software-compatible processors ranging in performance from 10 Mbps to 20 Gbps that enable secure, intelligent functionality in enterprise, data-center, broadband/consumer and access and service provider equipment. Cavium Networks processors are supported by ecosystem partners that provide operating systems, tool support, reference designs and other services. Cavium Networks principal offices are in Mountain View, CA with design team locations in California, Massachusetts and India. For more information, please visit: http://www.caviumnetworks.com.