After more than a year of methodical advances into the communications market, the microprocessor king unveiled a networking processor and a new system architecture that are likely to rock everything from comms-design assumptions to system pricing.

At the annual Intel Developer Forum, company executives described the new network processor, the IXP1200, and a new system architecture designed specifically for the wired world, Internet Exchange Architecture. The company also announced the acquisition of NetBoost Corp. during the conference, and confirmed that more acquisitions in the communications segment are in the pipeline.

"Every type of computer, every platform, is a connected device," observed Mark Christensen, vice president and general manager of Intel's network communication group. "Connectivity is key to everything we do. That's why Intel is interested in communications."

While the company's image is inextricably linked with the microprocessor, the network processor will be an increasingly important part of its future.

"Intel used to see networking as a way to increase the sales of PCs and microprocessors," noted Nathan Brookwood, principal analyst for Insight 64 (Saratoga, Calif.). "Now they are realizing they can make a lot of money in this field."

Michael Slater, executive editor of Microprocessor Report, noted that the company's ASPs for x86 microprocessors will only decline in the future and they can't realistically expect to increase their market share in that segment.

"Intel really has to diversify in order to maintain their growth rates," he said. "This is a strategic shift, but it's been going on for a while. Now we are starting to see some tangible evidence of that plan."

The IXP1200 chip features six RISC micro engines to process data packets at wire speed, all of which are managed by a standard StrongARM SA1 core, which does not operate at real-time. The micro engines all utilize multi-threading technology and can execute four instructions at once. Produced at the 0.28-micron level, the chip delivers total processing power of 1,000 MIPS, and runs on less than five watts. Each chip can provide up to 50 Gbits-per-second of bandwidth, and up to 16 of the devices can be plugged into a single system for a total aggregate bandwidth closing in on a terabit-per-second. Future versions of the chip will use a StrongARM SA2 core, and will almost certainly see design shrinks.

"The IXP1200 is designed specifically to manipulate, massage and transport data traffic," said Tony Stelliga, vice president of Level One Communications, one of Intel's recent acquisitions, and now a business unit within Christensen's networking group. He stressed that general-purpose microprocessors do not deliver the power to control the increasing traffic on today's networks, and ASICs are too expensive. "This chip is designed to replace upwards of a dozen ASICs in today's routers."

It is also priced to push ASICs out of the router space, with a single-chip price of $200, and volume-discounts making them even more affordable for large OEMs. "We are pricing these to replace ASICs," said Christensen. He estimated the potential market for network processors could grow to several hundred million dollars over the next few years.

Analyst Brookwood concurred, saying there is likely a demand for up to 2 million units of the $200 chips, and that demand will almost certainly increase over time.

"In the evolution of processors, we have seen several products emerge to address specific market needs, and that is what we are seeing here with the network processor," said Slater. "This is a concept that makes sense because networking systems have some very stringent performance requirements, but their needs are very focused."

Besides the IXP1200, Intel will roll out another dozen complementary chips in the next several months, including components to support Fast Ethernet LANs and WANs, exchange formatting engines, ATM framers, PHYs, and a pair of components for digital subscriber line modems. Christensen said the IXP1200 and several of the other components are sampling now, and about 10 parts in the family should ramp into volume production before the end of the year. The remaining parts will ramp in the first quarter of next year.

All of these chips will fit into the Internet Exchange Architecture (IXA), which Intel announced as an open format for the entire communications industry. "It's clear that there is an insatiable demand for bandwidth," said Christensen. "But the Internet was built for transportation, and the new demand is for different classes of service."

Comparing the Internet economy to an airplane, he said that all traffic today is delivered via cargo class, but emerging needs such as voice and video traffic will require higher priority and must be upgraded to first class. IXA and the IXP1200, with its six processing engines, are designed to allow service providers to move data in different manners.

It also allows them to monitor which traffic moves in which class, and charge higher rates for better service. "The carriers want to find ways to extract more revenue, and we are going to provide that capability," said Stelliga. "They can now offer different tiers of network service."

With its acquisition of NetBoost Corp., Intel Corp. has acquired a key layer of technology for its Internet Exchange Architecture (IXA).

Founded two years ago by seven people who had worked together at Sun Microsystems, NetBoost has developed an application programming interface (API) that Intel will adopt for its networking silicon. Pradip Shankar, vice president of engineering at NetBoost Corp. (Mountain View, Calif.) said the company set out to develop an API that could be used for more complex applications, such as provisioning, virtual private networks (VPNs), firewall creation, and other performance-critical apps.

"We wanted to target the more complex applications, which would require an API-based infrastructure. The idea is that the API would allow a hardening of those function, so the customers would get the speed they needed without the hassles of dealing with low-level hardware. The same software, the core services, can be mapped to different pieces of silicon," said Shankar.

That strategy caused Intel to first make a second-round investment in NetBoost last year, and to acquire the company outright in a deal signed at midnight Tuesday (Aug. 31) for an undisclosed amount. Mark Christensen, vice president of Intel's Network Communications Group (NCG), said the addition of NetBoost's API "will allow the ISAs (independent software developers) to write to our architectures," including Pentium processors, and the IXA 1200 processor introduced last week at the Intel Developer Forum here.

Shankar said NetBoost created a Network Classification Language which allows programmers to describe, in a media independent manner, the nature of various packets of information.

"The NCL allows the application to understand if this is, for example, an FTP packet, and then to figure out how to discriminate, manipulate, encrypt, and perform other actions, all of which have a classification paradigm," he said.

Since January, NetBoost also has been selling a co-processor designed to speed up network processing. Called the PE2110, the policy engine sells as a PCI card for about $3,000. The combination of hardware and software are used by network managers to monitor and control the network traffic.

Starting this year, NetBoost has started to derive revenues. With fewer than 100 employees, NetBoost will become an Intel subsidiary, and CEO Len Rand will report directly to Christensen.