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Software
& Microcode Projects:
The
following list provides a brief introduction into some of the recent
Software
and Microcode projects Comm Logic Design has developed.
Switching
Comm
Logic Design engineers have been working with Intel IXA network processor
designs since working for a client as an IXP1200 "alpha"
partner during the IXP1200's very early days. In fact, we
still have one of the very original IXP1200 silicon test platforms
provided by Intel containing one of the first handful of IXP1200s
produced. This project involved developing Microcode and StrongARM
Software on
an IXP1200 that provided an interface between a high speed serial
crossbar backplane and a Pentium computing blade. The backplane interface
combined an IXP1200, several FPGAs, dual port memories, and the “Cross
Stream” switch chipset from
Vitesse Semiconductor.
Our engineers wrote Microcode that forwarded traffic between the PCI
attached Pentium complex and the various blades in the system. The
code involved management of DMA transfers of data across the PCI bus,
segmentation and reassembly of frames transmitted and received to
and from the switch fabric, priority queuing, and traffic management.
Gigabit
Ethernet and Sonet Platforms
Comm Logic Design engineers have provided Microcode
development services to a
client building a multi-purpose Gigabit Ethernet and OC-48 Packet
over SONET platform. The client's platform is typically used in Internet
security and monitoring applications. The platform
contained a large number of Intel IXP1200's in the data path that performed
the bulk of the packet processing. Our engineers developed a
large amount of the Microcode employed in the client's platform.
Network
Intrusion Detection and Prevention
Comm Logic Design as a partner with Consystant, Inc. built an
implementation of the Snort Network Intrusion Detection System (NIDS)
for the IXP2400 network processor. The Snort detection engine was
implemented in Microcode on the Microengines of the IXP2400 and utilized
a Network Search Engine (NSE) to aid in offloading some of the lookup
functions to accellerate the implementation so that it could achieve
high rates of packet inspection.
The Snort NIDS was run on the Intel IXDP2400 development system.
A version of the NIDS was implemented that utilized the IDT PAX.port 2500 Content
Inspection Engine (CIE) on the IDT 2500i dual Gigabit Ethernet line
interface module for the IXDP2400 platform.
Network
Application Acceleration
Comm Logic Design is working with clients to accelerate existing
and new networking applications by utilizing network processor technology.
For example by utilizing an IXP2400, contained on a board such as
the Radisys
ENP-2611 three port Gigabit Ethernet PCI card, applications
that have otherwise run on standard platforms have been made to perform
at much higher rates by offloading significant portions of the application
from the host to the network processor.
Embedded
Linux for the IXP2400 and IXP2800
Comm Logic Design has completed a port of the open source Linux operating
system and Intel IXP NPU specific support code to for the IXP2xxx without requiring
Linux code typically provided by Monta Vista.
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