Alcatel-Lucent Unleashes its FP3 400G Network Processor

Alcatel-Lucent unveiled its 400 Gbps, "FP3" network processor for enabling the full stack of services over IP routers. The FP3 processor, which is scheduled to appear in Alcatel-Lucent's service router portfolio in 2012, supports 400 Gbps line rates, sufficient for handling 70,000 simultaneous High Definition video streams. It leverages 40nm process technology and represents the evolution of the company's 100 Gbps FP2 silicon, which was introduced in 2008 using 90nm process technology. It packs 288 RISC cores operating at 1 GHz. This compares with 112 cores at 840 MHz in the previous generation FP2 device. The new design uses 50% less power per bit than its predecessor.

Alcatel-Lucent describes the FP3 as an engineering achievement that will anchor the next wave in bandwidth-intensive Internet growth. In particular, the new silicon enables high densities of 10G, 40G and 100G ports on a single card. The plan is to deliver FP-3 based line cards for the 7750 SR and 7450 ESS platforms in 2-port 100GE, 6-port 40GE, and 20-port 10GE configurations in 2012. However, the flexibility of the design paves the way for other configurations, including 4x100G cards or native 400G interfaces. It also opens the door to scale routers with terabit class slots.



The FP3 also breaks new ground in that it enables the same full-services intelligence for core routers as has previously been possible at the metro or edge router.

"This technology puts us a generation ahead of today's fastest IP core routers – and it supports full edge services, which means it's not just moving bits, but generating revenue and creating value for service providers and their business residential and mobile customers. By making networks faster, smarter and more environmentally sustainable, Alcatel-Lucent is enabling the continuous innovation of consumer and business devices, content and applications that increasingly depend on service provider networks," stated Basil Alwan, president of Alcatel-Lucent's IP Division.

Ihab Tarazi, Vice President Global Network Planning of Verizon, said: "Verizon continues to enhance the FiOS and wireless data broadband access capabilities for our customers and we have worked with Alcatel-Lucent to deploy next generation Ethernet and MPLS metro technology. In March of this year, Verizon led the industry with a 100G Ethernet field trial based on Alcatel-Lucent's service router technology with its 100G FP2 silicon engine. We are excited to work with Alcatel-Lucent and continue to push the industry in technological innovation to support the significant growth of access data traffic."

Alcatel-Lucent also noted on-going work with Samsung Semiconductor, NetLogic Microsystems, Micron, GSI Technology, Cypress, Broadcom and others to push the envelope of innovation on high-speed DDR (double data rate), RLDRAM (Reduced-latency Dynamic random access memory), CAM (Content Addressable memory) and QDR (Quad Data Rate) memory and memory access, enabling the industry to accelerate adoption of 100G speeds and beyond.
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