Netronome

Netronome


NFP-3240

Targets: Communication & Wired

Netronome NFP-3240 Block Diagram

Netronome's network flow processors, NFP-32xx combine high-performance network, content and security processing with I/O virtualization. The NFP-32xx is backward-compatible with the Intel IXP28XX network processors. Powered by 40 multi-threaded programmable networking cores, the NFP's software-defined I/O supports both L2-L3 packet processing and L4-L7 application- and content-aware deep packet inspection.

Netronome's flow processors combine network, content and security processing, programming flexibility, and virtualization with extreme performance supporting 40 Gbps of throughput. Netronome's processing solutions provide a power efficient design to meet the requirements for "green" computing. The NFP-3240 is specifically designed for tight coupling with multicore Intel x86 processors to accelerate network, security and content processing to 40 and 100 Gbps.

At the heart of the NFP-3240 is an array of 40 microengine RISC processors operating at 1.4Ghz. Each microengine core supports eight simultaneous computing threads, enabling the NFP-3240 to deliver 56 billion instructions per second (BIPS). Additional hardware acceleration engines provide line-rate processing for PKI, bulk cryptography, and deep packet inspection (DPI). Unique to the NFP-3240 memory architecture are hardware accelerators for queues, atomic operations, and CAMs. By minimizing the effects of memory stalls, an intelligent memory management system delivers over 80 percent effective utilization of dual channels of DDR3 1333MHz and dual QDR SRAM channels that operate at up to 350MHz. This processing power and memory performance is required for L4 to L7 networking applications designed for 40 to 100 gigabit networks.

To scale network performance to 40 Gbps and beyond, the NFP-3240 offers a PCIe v2.0 implementation, including enhanced IOV support with 256 queues to provide guaranteed bandwidth and low-latency access to shared I/O devices. Netronome's IOV drivers include configurable algorithms for load balancing to virtualized multicore CPUs and zero-copy mechanisms to improve processor, memory, and system bandwidth utilization. In addition to eight PCIe lanes, the NFP supports high-speed network interfaces, including dual 25 Gbps Interlaken, SPI-4.2 and dual 10 Gbps XAUI.

Also available from Netronome are supporting NFP Software Development Tools and an NFP-3200 Customer Development Platform.