Mindspeed Launches ARM CPUs for Switches and Routers

Mindspeed, a company that builds processors for network equipment, has released a new version of its Comcerto SoC.

While the preceding 1000 series used 450, 533 and 650 MHz single--and dual-core versions of the ARMv6-based ARM 1136 chip, the new 2000 series offers clock speeds of up to 1.2 GHz in a single--and dual-core configuration of the ARMv7-based Cortex-A 9 MPCore.

The manufacturer said that the new chips enable a "new class of cost-effective products that support new protocols and higher speeds with lower power consumption." Targeted for use in switches, routers, security products, multi-service gateways, wireless access points and controllers, as well as NAS and residential and business VoIP applications, the processors include Mindspeed's Open Packet Acceleration Logic (OPAL) engine.

OPAL includes programmable wire-speed network accelerators such as engines for 2 Gbps IPv6 packet forwarding/network address translation, firewall/VPN, IPSec/SSL security processing, deep packet inspection (DPI), quality of service (QoS) and storage network processing.

The processor series is sampling as part of carrier-grade software and Linux software design kits (SDK) at this time. Customers can choose between the single-core Comcertro C2100 and the dual-core Comcerto C2200.