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Technology Stocks : Newbridge Networks -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: gbh who wrote (14894)	11/22/1999 8:33:00 AM
From: zbyslaw owczarczyk	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 18016

gbh,Its certainly conceivable that the year long delay in delivering a 50Gb class switch is because they chose to develop their own fabric. I have talked to NN people,and IBM is doing job for NN in this area. If switch will come at least solid we should see good volume for IBM going forward, regadless if NN will be independent or not. Zbyslaw

To: gbh who wrote (14894)	11/22/1999 7:20:00 PM
From: fumble	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 18016

Gary - Thanks much for the info on the switching chips. I tracked down a data sheet on the Prizma, but it seems that there has been a 4X improvement in chip performance since you last looked (the Prizma E). The new numbers seem to match the NN numbers too (2x28 = 50 and 454.4 Gbps) A once-over lightly info piece is given at: zurich.ibm.com <<< Characteristics of Prizma-E include: 16 input ports 16 output ports 1.6 - 1.8 Gbps per port QoS: up to four priorities Built-in support for modular growth in number of ports Built-in support for modular growth in port speed Built-in support for modular growth in aggregate throughput Built-in support for automatic load-sharing Self-routing switch element Dynamically shared-output buffered element Built-in multicast and broadcast Aggregate data rate 28 Gbit/s per module 3.8 Million transistors on chip 624 I/O pins Prizma has built-in the hardware support to built such switch systems easily. This is the preferred method to build, e.g., switches for port speeds of 622 Mbps and 2.488 Gbps. Assuming a 400 Mbit/s port speed for a single switch module (original Prizma chip), the paralleling of only two [original] modules would be sufficient to build a 622 Mbit/s switch. Two Prizma-E will support 3.6 Gps/port. lagaude.ibm.com PRIZMA Scalable Packet Switch Technology PRIZMA is a very high-performance, protocol independent, IBM developed technology that uniquely supports Fast Ethernet, Gigabit Ethernet, ATM, Fiber Channel and Token Ring. IBM's PRIZMA offering includes subsystems, companion chips, software and a test tool. At the chip level, PRIZMA is available with throughput rates of 6.4Gbps scalable to 102.4Gbps in single-stage expansion. The new PRIZMA-E chip provides throughput from 28.4Gbps to 454.4Gbps also for single stage switches. Using multi-stage expansion PRIZMA can scale to provide terabit systems. PRIZMA's flexibility includes switching variable size packets, scaling to support the number of ports and expanding port speeds. >>>> See also mini data sheets at: lagaude.ibm.com