SCIENCE

Applied Micro Circuits announced a high-performance System-on-a-Chip (SoC) featuring a 1.2GHz PowerPC 465 processing core for advanced Network Attached Storage (NAS), Wireless Access Point (WAP) and media gateway systems for the connected home market. The APM86491 offers twice the performance of competing devices, reduced bill-of-materials (BOM) cost and energy-efficient power consumption as low as 2.5W to bring enterprise-class performance to consumer systems.

AppliedMicro's APM86491 sets precedence in the industry with the first embedded processor offering two USB 3.0 ports, two PCI Express Gen 2 ports, up to two SATA-II ports and two 10/100/1000 Ethernet ports on a single device. By providing line-rate throughput simultaneously on all high-speed interfaces, the APM86491 delivers the industry's best throughput and performance. It also supports next-generation 802.11ac and advanced 802.11n WLAN compatibility and offers an unprecedented reduction in end system cost. With a rich array of leading edge peripherals, the APM86491 sets new levels of fully leveraged network entertainment and communication. Home appliances equipped with the APM86491 will be able to stream high definition video (1080i/1080p) of feature-length movies or clips while simultaneously enabling other Web2.0 applications to be accessed across a wide variety of connected home applications including NAS content.

AppliedMicro is also the first to offer a hardware-based Queue Manager with Traffic Manager. The QM/TM implements QoS to enable a richer video experience while unaffecting voice and web traffic. Catalina also implements inline packet acceleration technologies such as statefull TCP offload, hardware NAT and security features. These offloads enable applications such as firewalls, next-generation wireless access points and other connected home appliances such as NAS platforms. Performance is also increased by the Power Architecture 465 CPU featuring a dual issue, out-of-order processor core. The tangible benefit to end-users is uninterrupted performance with no stalls during data transfers. Bandwidth multiplexing coupled with speed and coverage range of wireless connectivity are improved as on-the-go sharing through smartphones, tablets, laptops and HD displays become more and more pervasive. The SoC can operate at 2.5W to meet energy-efficiency requirements and eliminate the need for system cooling fans and heat sinks for reduced BOM.

"By leveraging our experience in mission-critical enterprise systems, AppliedMicro was able to bring efficiency and performance to consumer platforms with our advanced processing architecture to support triple play services in connected homes," said Vinay Ravuri, Vice President and General Manager of the Processor Division at AppliedMicro. "Offloading and packet acceleration features on the SoC relieve the main CPU of routine tasks and the Queue Manager with Traffic Manager supports advanced features for the delivery of high quality multi-media content to every connected device in digital living rooms."

Catalina also offers encryption and power management offloads eliminating the need for expensive external hardware and software complexity. These offloads offer hardware classification and forwarding and accelerate VPN applications making it ideal for home gateways. The power management feature includes a standby mode that can wake on any interface while consuming less than 200mW to meet emerging standards for energy efficiency. The APM86491 SoC also features 16/32-Bit DDR3 memory interface at up to 1066Mbps with optional ECC, and other industry-standard interfaces such as four UARTs and dual SDIO in a 19mm-x-19mm BGA package.

The Catalina APM86491 PowerPC 465 core features floating point unit, 32KB L1 I-cache, 32KB D-cache and 256 KB L2 cache with hardware I/O coherency. It has a Turbo Security Engine with optional on-chip IPSEC/SSL/bulk data security acceleration engine, power island and Wake-on-X for power management, boot from NOR, NAND, and SATA-II, and a real-time clock. Android(TM) OS may be ported for growing software application demand.

"Today's consumer systems are required to support a growing array of digital content such as high-definition video that requires considerable processing horsepower. At the same time, manufacturers are looking for energy efficiency, competitive pricing and low BOM," said Joseph Byrne, Senior Analyst at The Linley Group. "The QM/TM on AppliedMicro's APM86491 intelligently directs packet traffic within the chip and to/from the I/Os to make processing digital media content more efficient. Combining this performance with low-power dissipation and a compelling price will entice consumer OEMs to engage with AppliedMicro for next-generation systems."

Samples of AppliedMicro's APM86491 will be available in the third quarter and high-volume production pricing is under $20.