Vitesse Debuts "Serval" Switch Engine for Mobile Backhaul

Vitesse Semiconductor unveiled its "Serval" Carrier Ethernet switching silicon optimized for power and cost-sensitive applications at the network edge. The new line of devices adds to Vitesse's portfolio of previously announced Jaguar, LynX and Caracal solutions for Carrier access, aggregation, and mobile applications.


The first of the new Serval chips offers nine 10/100/1000 Mbps SGMII/SerDes ports and two 2.5G SGMII/SerDes ports. It supports MPLS/MPLS-TP LER and LSR and IEEE 1588v2, making it suitable for mobile backhaul including LTE-Advanced applications. An embedded 416 MHz MIPS processor supports timing over packet and injection of advanced data flows for service activation measurement (SAM) testing. Serval also provides Ethernet Operations, Administration & Maintenance (OAM) and performance monitoring (IEEE 802.1ag, ITU-T Y.1731, ITU-T Y.1564). It includes hierarchical QoS, i.e. multi-stage scheduling, policing, and traffic shaping. It also provides the ability to separate subscriber types with per subscriber queuing.


Unlike competing products which are downsized versions of larger Ethernet switches, the eleven port size of the Vitesse Serval offers 3 watt typical power dissipation, enabling it to be used in a variety of energy efficient fiber, microwave and millimeter-wave backhaul equipment, as well as wireline network edge devices.


For microwave backhaul, Serval delivers a Vitesse patented feature set for Transparent Clock support.


Samples of the Serval VSC7418 are available this month.


"Power is one of the highest OPEX considerations in many emerging regional networks, such as China and India. Compared to competitive ASSP and NPU-based solutions which range from 6-15W, Serval delivers the industry's richest Carrier feature set for access-edge applications at less than 3W," said Uday Mudoi, director of product marketing at Vitesse. "With Carriers trending towards small micro and pico cells to add network capacity, Serval is ideal for this burgeoning application. Additionally, with its industrial temperature range support, Serval enables a variety of outdoor and fanless designs, such as microwave backhaul enclosures and 1U Ethernet access device systems." http://www.vitesse.com http://www.vitesse.com/products/product.php?number=VSC7418