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Telecommunications systems

Lucent Technologies Unveils Pi-Switch Architecture for Scalable Switching Capacity

Strategic Insights

— 2 min read

Lucent Technologies Microelectronics Group, the world leader in communications semiconductors, has announced the "Pi-Switch" chip set for a protocol-independent switch fabric architecture, providing network equipment makers a powerful modular and scalable switching capability for IP, ATM, and multiservice applications.

The Pi-Switch architecture offers increased throughput, lower board space and power requirements, and a migration path to terabit, or trillion bit-per-second, speeds. It is implemented in a chip set consisting of the Pi-X switch chip and one or more Pi-C crossbar element chips. The architecture is protocol-independent and supports two port rates, 1 Gbits/s and 4 Gbits/s, with a nonblocking architecture that offers modular scalability over a wide range of switching and buffering capacities.

Key Takeaways:

  • The Pi-Switch architecture is a protocol-independent switch fabric architecture that provides network equipment makers a powerful modular and scalable switching capability for IP, ATM, and multiservice applications.
  • The architecture offers increased throughput, lower board space and power requirements, and a migration path to terabit, or trillion bit-per-second, speeds.
  • The chip set consists of the Pi-X switch chip and one or more Pi-C crossbar element chips, and is implemented in a chip set format.
  • The Pi-Switch architecture supports two port rates, 1 Gbits/s and 4 Gbits/s, with a nonblocking architecture that offers modular scalability over a wide range of switching and buffering capacities.
  • The architecture provides two quality-of-service (QoS) channels from every input port to every output port, for up to 8K QoS channels.
  • The Pi-Switch architecture is compatible with Lucent's ATLANTA(tm) Release 2 ATM switching chip, and supports 1 Gbits/s traffic.
  • Lucent plans to spin off its Microelectronics Group as an independent company that will include its optoelectronics and integrated circuits divisions by the summer of 2001.
  • The new company will provide end-to-end networking solutions that address the convergence of photonics and electronics based on leadership in both integrated circuits and optoelectronic components.

Statistics:

  • The Pi-Switch architecture offers increased throughput of up to 128 Gbits/s.
  • The architecture supports two port rates, 1 Gbits/s and 4 Gbits/s.
  • Each Pi-C crossbar element chip supports a configurable 8-bit or 32-bit data bus.
  • The architecture provides 8K quality-of-service (QoS) channels.
  • Lucent has announced it will spin off its Microelectronics Group as an independent company by the summer of 2001.

Sources:

  • "Business Editors/High-Tech Writers NetWorld Interop Atlanta 2000 ALLENTOWN, Pa.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 25, 2000"
  • Lucent Technologies Microelectronics Group web site at http://www.lucent.com/micro
  • Lucent Technologies web site at http://www.lucent.com

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