All for one and one for all - the three musketeers of network processing
Switching ASIC vs CPU vs FPGA
At A6Labs we’ve
adopted the philosophy of using the best technology for the task rather than making the task fit the technology we already use. There are
plenty of counter arguments to having multiple technologies in a product but we
believe that to work at the forefront of what is possible we must use the best
solution for the problem.
Athos
Programmable Switching Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC). Lightning fast, fairly quick to catch on, specialising in the elite art of packet processing the ASIC is a microchip that can be programmed to perform all kinds of manipulations on packet data (see day in the life of a packet). It can alter the contents of a packet, adding, removing and translating portions before sending the packet on its way, steering it towards its next destination. It speaks the language of P4, a programming language developed specifically for network processing.
Programmable switch
chips are a comparatively recent development, market players are Broadcom and
Intel (the later having purchased Barefoot Networks in 2019). The technology has been a
market disrupter allowing far more flexible network processing than traditional
network switches can facilitate.
Porthos
The Field Programmable
Gate Array (FPGA). ‘Slower’ than its ASIC partner but infinitely flexible. This
microchip can turn its hand to anything but is particularly good at performing
many repetitive tasks in parallel and interfacing to an unlimited range of
other electronics. Being so flexible it is trickier to program than its
colleagues and uses a lesser known languages of VHDL or Verilog.
The FPGA market is
dominated by two companies, Intel and Xilinx. As well as the telecoms market
FPGA’s are used in AI, signal processing, broadcast and financial trading amongst many other applications. FPGA’s have been around for over
40 years steadily growing in complexity and capability. Traditionally, they
suffer from extended development times and a limited set of skilled developers.
Both Intel and Xilinx have made attempts to address this using ‘high level’
programming languages more widely know in the developer community. Additionally
both now include significant intellectual property with their development tools
to enable common functions such as talking to memory chips without relying on
the developer to implement these basic functions themselves.
Aramis
The Central Processing Unit (CPU) or colloquially the x86. Present in every home computer. Given any single task it is likely that the ASIC will be able to perform it faster and the FPGA will be able to perform more of them concurrently but this tech compliments the other two with its ability to perform very complex tasks in an almost limitlessly flexible way. Knowledge of how to program it is widely understood and doing so is fast and the results quickly modified.
Again Intel dominate the market and are a household name but AMD also have a significant presence. Lesser know ARM produce designs for CPU’s without actually manufacturing the chips themselves. ARM based chips are present in many mobile phones, and other household electronics particularly where power consumption is important.
Our three musketeers
of the microchip world can be brought together to tackle the most challenging
of network processing problems. Hurrah.
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