Adaptive internet switch using new cell tech bows

Electronic News, July 27, 1992 by Andrew Collier

NEW YORK--Using silicon of its own design, Adaptive Corp. has become the first major vendor to introduce an internetworking switch based on the next generation of cell switching technology, in a market just starting to attract interest among the large silicon houses.

The switch, designated the ATMX but also nicknamed "Wanda," is a 1.2-gigabit per second capacity system operating under the Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM), a technique that chops data into 53-byte cells for transfer at speeds that eventually could reach 13Gbps.

Since ATM is just hitting the market, the design of the ATM silicon has been left to the smaller, internetworking system companies, such as Adaptive, a unit of Network Equipment Technologies (NET). The large silicon vendors are testing the waters but have not yet set plans to enter the market.

"They're not going to get involved if it means selling 10,000 chip-sets a year," maintains Al Spiegleman, vice president of strategic marketing with Base2 Systems, a Boulder, Col., designer of high-end communications devices, referring to the major silicon producers. "They want to sell hundreds of thousands of chips, and the ATM market won't reach that for five years," Mr. Spiegleman added.

The lack of support from the larger houses suggests, according to some observers, that it will be several years before the cost-curve for ATM silicon will descend. Eventually, though, "ATM parts will end up being very cheap" due to economies of scale, notes John McQuillan, a leading ATM consultant, which will help drive the market.

Adaptive's new switch contains Adaptive's proprietary ATM cell-switching ICs, along with conventional 68000 series microprocessors from Motorola.

Although it is keeping its cell-switching ICs to itself, Adaptive is licensing a two-chip set that functions as an ATM interface to other devices, like workstations or routers. To ensure a second source for the ATM adapter chips, Adaptive is licensing the designs to Transwitch Corp., Shelton, Conn. Adaptive's main source for the ATM ICs both for the switch and for the adapter card is LSI Logic, which is not licensing the technology.

Apart from the switch itself, Adaptive is selling an ATM adapter board for Sun SparcStations, priced at $4,500, which includes the two Adaptive-designed ATM fragmentation and reassembly chips. Also inside the board is an Advanced Micro Devices line interface chipset called the Taxichip, using 4B5B encoding, which provides a physical layer interface to the fiber transport medium.

Audrey MacLean, Adaptive's president and CEO, said 12 other companies are using the Adaptive-designed ATM interface chips, but the only product with its technology to be made public so far is from bridge and router vendor, Retix, in Santa Monica, Calif.

Ms. MacLean believes ATM already is beginning to dominate attention over competing technologies such as FDDI, which runs at 100 Mbps but on which users must share bandwidth. "Most workstation vendors have abandoned FDDI on the motherboard in favor of ATM on the motherboard," claimed Ms. MacLean.

The development efforts by small vendors such as Adaptive, considered on the "bleeding edge," in part because of its relationship with NET, have not gone unnoticed by the larger silicon houses.

Randy Morgan, Texas Instruments LSI development manager, commented "We're definitely interested in ATM. You can look for something to happen that does layer in nicely with what we're doing in Sonet." Sonet is the Synchronous Optical Network, a high-speed data system that defines the physical standards over which ATM cells would travel.

TI is licensing ICs from Transwitch in a technology related to ATM, including a 155Mbps Sonet synchronization and framer, and a 155Mbps overhead terminator, but Mr. Morgan would not confirm reports that TI had struck a deal to license ATM ICs from Transwitch based on Adaptive's designs. He said TI plans to license more ICs from Transwitch this fall, without elaboration.

Mr. Morgan said the TI arrangement with Transwitch contains an exclusivity clause "for specific products for a period of time." One source said National Semiconductor also tried to strike a deal with Transwitch but was unsuccessful. Meanwhile, the smaller silicon designers are getting a jumpstart on the market.

This quarter, Base2 is beginning low-volume shipments of the SCARF Switched Multimegabit Data Service CMOS integrated circuit, and anticipates volume shipments next quarter. Mr. Spiegleman said the SCARF, a control and reassembly single-chip device, could be easily altered to perform ATM functions.

In May, British Columbia-based PMC-Sierra, in which Sierra Semiconductor in June bought a majority stake, announced its Saturn line of products for ATM and SONET (EN, June 8).

On the systems side, Adaptive isn't necessarily the first to market with an ATM switch, which will be available in the U.S. in September at a starting price of $45,000. Pittsburgh-based Fore Systems has had a 16-port 1.6Gbps switch in beta tests for four months and expects to begin shipments this month, said Robert Sansom, executive vice president.