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Virtex FPGA Provides Seamless Design Integration for MUSIC Semiconductors’ EPOCH Product Debut
 designs, manufactures,
and markets advanced semiconductor devices that accelerate crucial functions
within network switching and routing systems. Their launch of the
new EPOCH Multimedia Switch on a Chip at the Network-Interop show in Las
Vegas was mission critical. While other companies were introducing
an integrated switch on a chip, EPOCH was the first of its kind, offering
Layer3/Layer4 switch on a chip capability. The density and reprogrammability
of the Virtex device were key factors for creating the new EPOCH design
in time for the show.
“The Xilinx Virtex device allowed MUSIC Semiconductors to get a fully functional version of our EPOCH device up and running in a fraction of the time it would have taken to get an ASIC turned. As a result, we were able to successfully demonstrate our new product,” said Don Kugler, Sales Manager for MUSIC Semiconductors. “No other existing programmable logic solution provided the density that we required. From a sales perspective, I can tell you that it was critical that we have a fully functioning, viable product to introduce at this show. It would have been absolutely impossible to have made the impact we did without the Virtex device; it made the whole thing come together,” said Kugler. The Virtex series devices range from 50,000 to 1,000,000 system gates at clock speeds up to 200 MHz and include many new features that address system-level design challenges. Fully supported by the Alliance Series software, the Virtex family offered a complete solution for MUSIC Semiconductors, ready to meet the design challenges for their groundbreaking product. Using the delay locked loops for internal/external clock synchronization, clock skew was eliminated and the Virtex device provided clock-to-output delays of less than three nanoseconds resulting in a substantial increase in system performance. “The introduction of our multilayer EPOCH switch represents a new era for IP switching,” said Dave Walls, President of MUSIC Semiconductors. “The main challenge in multimedia transmission over IP is to classify and prioritize each individual flow. As the world leader for CAM technology, identifying packet source and destination addresses is the backbone of our business. Adding a Layer 3 and 4 protocol processor plus a switch fabric to our search engines is a natural move for us. Our strategy is to enable the convergence of data and multimedia into IP networks with integrated system-on-a-chip at an irresistible price/performance ratio.” EPOCH provides Quality of Service switching capability to facilitate handling multimedia traffic that could include voice, video, and data. Up to 16 physical ports are supported up to an aggregate data rate of 1.4 million packets per second. EPOCH’s TDM bus architecture connects easily to most of Layer 2 devices including Ethernet Fram Relay, ATM, Token Ring, and FDDI. Assistance with Layer 2 IP to MAC address translation is also provided. This broad functionality gives EPOCH the potential to be used as the core of a multimedia system within WAN edge routers, remote access servers, DSLAMs, and multiservice platforms, as well as group switches and routers. “The Virtex device ended up roughly 85% utilized and compiled successfully through several iterations. An ASIC is roughly 300,000 gates, but includes a significant amount of multi-level combinatorial logic; thus the need for a device with the density of the Virtex device,” said Kugler. Design of the Virtex device was completed very quickly; the design team already had the Verilog code for an ASIC written. The code was synthesized using Synplicity and then compiled with Alliance tools. “The most beneficial part of the tool set stemmed from the fact that we were able to take existing code, synthesize it, and then compile it into a working FPGA in a short period of time, all relatively seamlessly. Design iterations did not pose a significant roadblock because of the seamless tools integration.” “The EPOCH switch allows our customers to quickly meet the market demand for genuine multimedia network capability,” said David Sinofsky, Director of Worldwide Sales for MUSIC Semiconductors. “Other companies are offering integrated switch on a chip capabilities but many are not capable of wire speed processing. Such products do not support real multimedia needs and are expensive for their limited level of integration. In contrast, the EPOCH is truly multilayer; feature rich and very aggressively priced. You can understand why we already have customer commitments for this product.” The EPOCH switch is ready to sample now and starts shipping near the
end of Q3 1999. MUSIC Semiconductors’ technology is implemented into
products offered by networking industry leaders such as 3Com Corporation,
Bay Networks, Inc., and Cisco Systems, Inc. MUSIC Semiconductors
is a subsidiary of MUSIC Corporation, a holding company focused on networking,
telecommunications, and the Internet. MUSIC Corporation is listed
on the Philippine Stock Exchange, and publicly traded under the ticker
symbol MUSX.
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