cPacket Networks and RMI Corporation, have collaborated to greatly simplify the design process for network equipment manufacturers who wish to add real-time, “complete” packet inspection to their current and next generation products.

“Complete” packet inspection is a methodology where 100% of the bytes transmitted over a network link – including both headers and payload – are examined in real time. The combined solution provides network equipment designers with a unique, low-power, economical solution for true 20-gigabit processing in real time.

cPacket offers a unique chip that performs complete packet inspection at 20 gigabits per second. RMI, the leading provider of multi-core, multi-threaded MIPS-64-Based(TM) processors, has worked closely with cPacket to test and prove the interoperability of cPacket’s chip with RMI’s XLR(TM) Processor.

By combining the cPacket chip with the XLR Processor, front-end packet inspection eliminates undesirable traffic, freeing the XLR processor to deliver higher performance in the control plane and more throughput in data plane operations. This results in extremely efficient use of valuable processing resources. An Ethernet interface on the cPacket chip connects directly to the data interface on the XLR processor, eliminating the need for designers to tie up the system bus.

RMI’s XLR Processor family is a cost effective, single-chip solution providing a key building block for applications such as integrated network security, web services, virtualized storage, server offload and intelligent routing and switching systems. The XLR Processor provides industry-standard interfaces and an extensive set of connectivity options, and combines the power of an innovative multiprocessing, multi-threaded architecture with the simplicity of an XLR-enhanced leading edge, general purpose MIPS64(TM) machine. This enables the development of wire speed, software-driven applications across multiple platforms.

cPacket’s technology provides for complete inspection of every bit in every packet at wire speed including parsing of the protocol header, and regular expression searching in the payload. Provisioning the chip is supported by a simple and powerful template-based application programming interface (API) which enables a “zero programming” model.

According to Mark Litvack, director of business development at RMI, the combined solution provides network equipment designers with a unique, low-power, economical solution for true 20-gigabit processing in real time. “Our customers will greatly benefit from combining cPacket’s unprecedented complete packet inspection solution with our popular XLR Processor,” said Litvack. “The result is a truly versatile and high-performance platform that not only simplifies product development, but significantly shortens time to market for products with such enhanced capabilities.”

Brendan O’Flaherty, vice president of business development at cPacket, added: “Our collaboration with RMI is an example of the growing ecosystem surrounding our complete packet inspection technology, and we are delighted to partner up with RMI.”

The companies jointly provide software and hardware development tools, as well as technical support and system and sub-system design expertise, to simplify and support the design process. Both the RMI XLR processor and the cPacket Complete Packet Inspection chip are available now.

About RMI Corporation
RMI® is a fabless semiconductor company providing highly integrated, feature-rich products ranging from power-optimized System-on-a-Chip (SoC) solutions to High-Performance Processors for the Digital Consumer, Wireless, Networking and Security markets. RMI offers the most advanced and the most complete MIPS-Based® processing solutions with both 32/64-bit architectures supporting frequencies from 300 MHz to 1.2 GHz. RMI is headquartered in Cupertino, CA with branch and subsidiary operations in Texas, United Kingdom, India, Korea, Japan, Taiwan and China. More information about RMI can be found on the company’s website at www.RMI-Corp.com.

About cPacket
cPacket Networks is an emerging leader in chips and technologies that offers breakthrough, “complete” packet inspection, at a fraction of the complexity, power, or cost of preexisting approaches. It provides manufacturers of switches, routers, and other network appliances a low-impact means to easily drop game-changing, wire-speed active network traffic analysis and response directly into their existing or planned designs – whether targeted at the service providers, the enterprise, or the small office. The exploding use of networks for media-centric applications makes the availability of truly pervasive deep packet inspection timely and crucial.

cPacket was founded in 2003 and is located in Mountain View, CA. For more information, visit www.cpacket.com.