Hi Mike,
A few points, all caveated by my earlier comment about not being an industry expert. I have always understood ATM as a layer 2 switching architecture (well, layers one and two). When you go to layer three switching, you are no longer in the ATM world (the ATM model stops at the user layer), so to me layer 3 ATM chips is a bit of an oxymoron (like political leadership, miltary intelligence, etc. <G>) Once you are in layer 3, you have to "talk" IP, which is a huge jump in complexity and comprehensiveness required of any solutions. The major layer-3 companies that I am familiar with (Avici, Nexabit, Argon, Foundry, Juniper, plus the bigs) are all developing their own silicon (ten chips in the case of Avici)which won't be sold to anyone else. Eventually there may be a market for merchant silicon doing layer-3 switching, but not until the first-generation boxes get installed and the market requirements are sufficiently understood (IMHO).
Like you, I have not heard that Bay makes chips to sell on the merchant market, and it would surprise me greatly. Who would buy them (all likely customers are direct competitors, no?) |
