AppliedMicro Delivers Embedded Processor for 802.11ac Wireless Access Points

AppliedMicro introduced its new Catalina APM86491 embedded System-on-a-Chip (SoC) processor for next generation IEEE 802.11ac wireless access points with an enterprise-class QoS engine, TCP offload engines, a 4 Gbps packet classification engine and application aware offloads. These advanced capabilities will be essential in supporting the new class of all-in-one home appliances that serve as a router, wireless access point and networked storage drive.


Catalina’s highly integrated design supports a variety of high speed interfaces within the device. Two PCI-Express 2.0 interfaces support dual concurrent 802.11ac radio devices; two SATA interfaces support internal storage connectivity and two USB 3.0 ports - one host and one OTG - provide external storage connectivity. Additionally, four Gigabit Ethernet ports are available for a variety of network configurations.


AppliedMicro said this combination enables next generation 802.11ac wireless access points to be integrated into all-in-one network appliances. Catalina APM86491 is the industry’s first embedded processor equipped to handle the bandwidth requirements of this new class of consumer home network systems.


AppliedMicro also offers the industry’s first integrated software programmable co-processor within the APM86491 Catalina SoC for application specific customizable offloads. Performance is also provided by Catalina’s 1 GHz Power Architecture 465 CPU featuring a dual issue, out-of-order processor core. Catalina features an advanced hardware-based QoS engine with support for DPI (Deep Packet Inspection) for prioritization of real-time and latency sensitive traffic. The SoC leverages its queue manager and classifier to perform bandwidth management with 256 queues, 1024 search filters, and 128 traffic policers and shapers. This provides a richer video experience while voice and web traffic remain unaffected by multiple simultaneous streams and applications.


Catalina provides 64-byte L2 bridging performance with a classifier offload equal to 762Mbps, delivers 100 percent Ethernet line rate performance with no CPU utilization. IP forwarding 64-byte performance with classifier offload delivers 621Mbps at 100 percent CPU utilization. IP forwarding 1500-byte performance with classifier offload delivers 986Mbps at zero percent CPU utilization. Catalina’s Robocopy NAS writes equal 110 Megabytes per second (MBps) at 80 percent CPU utilization. Iometer NAS writes are 110 MBps at 35 percent CPU utilization and Iometer NAS reads are 108 MBps at 40 percent CPU utilization.


“Current integrated radio and processor SoC solutions are unable to deliver the performance demanded by IEEE 802.11ac base systems, providing Catalina with unique positioning in this market. The latest WLAN standard offers longer range and improved wall penetration for better wireless network service. Additionally, 802.11ac supports more users and higher throughput to enable a richer media experience,�? said Vinay Ravuri, Vice President and General Manager of the Embedded Processor Business Unit of AppliedMicro. “In order to build next-generation systems, it is essential to have a CPU with the throughput that delivers a high quality video streaming experience and support for multiple simultaneous streams. Catalina’s SLIMpro™ co-processor, TCP offload engines for both transmit and receive, queue manager, classifier and security engine divert CPU intensive tasks into hardware to deliver the industry’s best throughput performance for next-generation wireless access point designs.�?http://www.apm.com