QDR-IV SRAMs enable world’s lowest latency network switch

Cypress Semiconductor HAS announced that networking equipment maker Exablaze has selected Cypress’s QDR-IV SRAM for its ExaLINK Fusion networking switch. The switch utilizes a modular design implemented using a Xilinx Ultrascale FPGA interfaced to a QDR-IV memory. The ExaLINK Fusion leverages Cypress’s fastest QDR-IV device running at 1066 MHz, which provides the highest Random Transaction Rate (RTR) of any memory on the market. RTR, the number of fully random memory accesses per second, is the critical memory performance metric for increased line card and switching rates. Leveraging the high RTR and low latency of Cypress QDR-IV SRAMs, the ExaLINK Fusion performs conventional layer 2 switching at 110 nanoseconds—the industry’s lowest latency, which represents a 2X to 3X improvement over the next best solution in the market. The platform uses two QDR-IV SRAMs per board for buffering and packet storage. QDR-IV SRAMs are the memory of choice for latency-sensitive applications within a variety of industries, including networking, FPGA-based trading platforms, high-performance computing and defence systems, says the company. “Cypress’s QDR-IV SRAM provides the high-RTR, low-latency and high-bandwidth that we wanted in order to achieve leading performance targets for our ExaLINK Fusion switch,” said Mathew Chapman, CTO, Exablaze. “The modular design combining QDR-IV with a high-performance FPGA allows users to configure the ExaLINK Fusion to perform a range of key tasks efficiently and with the low latency our customers have come to expect from Exablaze products.” Oliver Pohland, senior director of the Synchronous Memory Business Unit, Cypress, added: “QDR-IV offers a significant performance increase over other memory solutions and will play a key role in enabling next generation switches and routers operating at 100G and beyond. We are pleased that Exablaze selected Cypress’s QDR-IV SRAMs to achieve their vision for the lowest latency network switch on the market." The bottleneck for reaching increased line card rates is the processing of look-up tables, statistics and state counters stored in memory, as well as scheduling functions. QDR-IV devices deliver the RTR required to support these functions, enabling higher bandwidth and higher quality video streams. Cypress’s QDR-IV SRAM is capable of operating in burst-of-two (High Performance) or banked burst-of-two (Xtreme Performance) modes, delivering the fastest clock speeds and highest RTR of all QDR SRAMs. The banked burst-of-two mode can be operated at a maximum frequency of 1,066 MHz with an RTR of 2,132 million transactions per second (MT/s), while the standard burst-of-two mode can be operated at a maximum frequency of 667 MHz and an RTR of 1,334 MT/s. Cypress offers QDR-IV SRAMs in 144- and 72-Mb densities. The 144-Mb CY7C41xxKV and 72-Mb CY7C40xxKV QDR-IV SRAMs are shipping in production quantities today and are available in a 361-ball Flip Chip Ball Grid Array (FCBGA) package. QDR-IV SRAMs are the market’s highest performance, standardized networking memories. QDR-IV was developed in the QDR consortium, whose members jointly define SRAM standards to enable multiple sources and supply stability, says the company.