From Microchip to Macro Gains

With bandwith being a constant worry, solutions providers have jumped onto the bandwagon of customized solution offerings using available resources and taking up the least storage space, with one vying to outdo the other. Combining microchip and motion sensors with low bandwith requirement applications, that are available in real-time, are thus key to an upward growth model, for enterprises and solutions providers, both.

Keeping this in mind, Juniper Networks has announced the launch of a new generation of silicon that will enable customers to upgrade existing T Series Core Routers, to a full duplex slot capacity of 250 Gbps, with no service interruption. The new chipset lays the foundation for a total capacity of 4 Tbps in a single, half-rack system, ensuring that customers can continue to scale the T Series in line with rapidly accelerating services, subscribers and bandwidth growth. With Unified In-service Software Upgrades, customers can also upgrade Junos software from one version to the next with the minimal risk of service interruption. This chipset is also useful for delivering IPv4 and IPv6 routed services.

While with the TX Matrix Plus, T1600 customers can evolve to multi-chassis systems at a massive scale, the new chipset will further enable the scaling of single chassis systems up to 4 Tbps. Built in 45-nanometer technology, the chipset yields total router throughput surpassing 4 Tbps, exceeding the performance and scale of off-the-shelf silicon. In addition, the chipset includes advanced diagnostic capabilities, auto detection and self-healing, and also incorporates significant power efficiency features to enable more environmentally conscious data center and service provider networks.

The first trials with products that use the new chipset technology are scheduled for the second half of 2010 and will be available for purchase in early 2011.

In a bid to offer low-cost, motion sensing microchips that consume minimum power, Microchip Technology, a leading provider of microcontroller and analog semiconductors, has also announced two new families of 16-bit PIC24F microcontrollers (MCUs), one with USB functionality and one for general purpose applications-both with feature of nanoWatt XLP extreme low power technology, small packages and mTouch capacitive touch sensing.

While, the USB family provides for peripheral, embedded host and on-the-go (OTG) implementations, Microchip's nanoWatt XLP technology provides the world's lowest sleep currents, with current consumption down to 20 nA in Deep Sleep mode, resulting in the lowest power consumption of any MCU with USB OTG, ten times lower than USB MCUs from available ultra-low-power manufacturers.

The USB PIC microcontrollers thus enable the lowest power consumption for applications such as thumb-drive interfaces, capacitive touch panels and many battery-powered applications. Microchip also provides USB software support, configuration tools, customer training and USB development boards that can help designers market their products more effectively.

Applications for the new PIC24FJ64GA104 and PIC24FJ64GB004 MCUs include battery-powered (remote controls, security systems, portable meters, irrigation timers), consumer (thermostats, smoke detectors, business card scanners/printers), industrial (utility metering, electronic locks, POS terminals), automotive (remote key less entry, audio and infotainment), and medical (glucometers, blood pressure monitors, fitness monitors) use.

F5 Networks, another leading solutions provider announced new F5 and VMware solutions which promise organizations to rapidly respond to changing application and business requirements by seamlessly migrating live applications across geographically dispersed data centers.

VMware Vmotion, the joint F5 and VMware solution helps solve latency, bandwidth, and packet loss issues, which historically have prevented customers from performing live migration between data centers. This new solution mitigates the impact of migrating virtual machines across long distances-allowing live migration and automatic redirection of sessions-thus making the experience seamless to users. BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) and BIG-IP Global Traffic Manager (GTM) also enables local and global redirection of established and new web application sessions before and after the migration. All products integrated within the joint solution are available from F5 and VMware, respectively.

While options are many, performance is still the key and compatibility with available resources also has to be kept in mind. R&D is thus recommended, and solutions providers will no doubt compete in this space to offer the best services, customized to individual business needs. Making the right choice, ultimately, is up to the user.

berylm@cybermedia.co.in