Tundra expands serial Rapidio® switch portfolio with launch of new 12 port, low power, small footprint switch

Based on the most recent release of the Serial RapidIO Specification v1.3, the Tsi576 Serial RapidIO Switch sets industry benchmarks for high-performance and low power consumption already established by the Tsi574™ and Tsi578™. Ideally suited for local DSP and processor aggregation to backplanes, the Tsi576 targets applications such as wireless baseband line cards, media gateways and video head end equipment, where data from large clusters of DSPs are aggregated and routed on larger bandwidth ports to switch cards in the backplane. The Tsi576 continues to support all other features in the Tsi57x family including the ability to route packets to over 64,000 endpoints, independent unicast and multicast routing mechanisms, and error management extensions that provide proactive issue notification to the fabric controller.

The Tsi576 switch interconnects Serial RapidIO-enabled microprocessors, DSPs, FPGAs, and peripheral devices, supporting an aggregate bandwidth of 40 Gbits/s. Designers can take advantage of configuration options to efficiently manage power requirements for high-performance. The Tsi576’s port flexibility supports up to two 4x mode ports and eight 1x mode ports, or up to twelve 1x mode ports. Each port is configurable to 1.25 Gbits/s, 2.5 Gbits/s or 3.125 Gbits/s. All of the switch’s ports are completely independent and will support mixed speeds.

The Tsi576 integrates several features that allow the switch to leverage the high-performance capabilities of the Serial RapidIO interconnect protocol. The switch has low latency between ports and each port has optional store and forward or cut-through modes providing peak performance in any configuration. In addition, there is extensive traffic management through three fabric scheduling algorithms and programmable buffer depth for guaranteed bandwidth. Fabric performance monitoring enables supervised and managed traffic flows that result in real-time fabric optimization. The Tsi576 offers low noise core, flip-chip packaging, adjustable drive current, adjustable pre-emphasis and receive equalization per lane which all contribute to the highest possible standards in signal integrity and performance.

“The price and performance per port on our new Tsi576 switch is optimized for DSP clusters with serial RapidIO ports. This switch is the optimal choice to aggregate board level traffic to the backplane,” said Rick O’Connor, chief technology officer at Tundra Semiconductor. “Our broad portfolio of high-performance serial RapidIO products provides customers with a wide selection of features and configurability to meet their specific design needs.”

“The new Tundra Tsi576 Switch is a welcome addition to the growing number of RapidIO products now available to support the development of RapidIO-based systems. This particular switch will be essential in connecting RapidIO from the local interconnect to the backplane which is critical to propagating the RapidIO standard across the ecosystem, “said Tom Cox, executive director of the RapidIO Trade Association.

The Tsi576 Serial RapidIO Switch will be sampling in October 2006. Volume pricing for the Tsi576 is under $90USD. The Tsi576 is implemented in a 21mm x 21mm, 300ball FCBGA package. The device is software compatible with Tundra’s broad portfolio of serial RapidIO switches. The device requires 1.2V and 3.3V power supplies and is rated for industrial and commercial temperature operations. The switches also support IEEE 1149.6 JTAG standard for high-speed interconnects. Using the Tundra Serial RapidIO Development Platform (SRDP) and applications engineering support, designers can commence early stage product development, later porting software to their own prototype hardware platforms, resulting in faster time to market.