GigaNetIC – A Scalable Embedded On-Chip Multiprocessor Architecture for Network Applications

In this paper, we present the prototypical implementation of the scalable GigaNetIC chip multiprocessor architecture. We use an FPGA-based rapid prototyping system to verify the functionality of our architecture in a network application scenario before we are going to fabricate the ASIC in a modern CMOS standard cell technology. The rapid prototyping environment gives us the opportunity to test our multiprocessor architecture with Ethernet-based data streams in a real network scenario. Our system concept is based on a massively parallel processor structure. Due to its regularity, our architecture can be easily scaled to accommodate a wide range of packet processing applications with disparate performance and throughput requirements at high reliability. Furthermore, the composition from predefined building blocks guarantees fast design cycles and simplifies system verification. We present standard cell synthesis results as well as a performance analysis for a firewall application with various couplings of hardware accelerators.