Six Chips Groomed For Traffic Management Assignments

The capacity, size and total system cost of wireless and wireline telecomm equipment are claimed to be dramatically improved by six new chips designed to perform various crucial communication functions involving voice, data and video signals. Two of the new chips, the APP550TM and APP530TM, specialize in performing: traffic management, segmentation and reassembly (SAR), asynchronous transfer mode (ATM), and voice and data packet processing functions; administration and maintenance operations; and other activities. With the two new chips, telecomm service providers reportedly can serve eight times more types of traffic to their customers at nearly half the price of competitive devices. In addition, the APP550TM also integrates on-chip Ethernet MACs and runs at a 5-Gb/s pace. The APP550TM and APP530TM cost $575 and $295 each/10,000, respectively. The other four chips include the TAAD Lite and UltraLite, both of which pack about 140 million transistors and are said to integrate 12 chips into one, and SAR-1K and SAR-500 for performing SAR functions. All four chips target 3G wireless base stations and digital subscriber line access multiplexers. Together, they range from $125 to $300 each/10,000 in price. More details are available from AGERE SYSTEMS, Customer Response Center Dept B09, Allentown, PA. (800) 372-2447.