NetLogic Microsystems released XLP multi-core processor development kit

NetLogic Microsystems has made available the XLP multi-core Processor Development Kit that includes hardware and software tools, libraries, drivers and reference solutions. This development kit is based on XLP multi-core, multi-threaded processor. NetLogic Microsystems' XLP processor family is the first and only embedded communications processor that features quad-issue, quad-threaded and superscalar out-of-order capabilities with up to 128 NXCPUs operating at 2.0GHz. The XLP multi-core processor was recently rated "an exceptional CPU" which delivers "two to four times the performance of competing CPUs" by the Microprocessor Report.

NetLogic Microsystems' XLP multi-core Processor Development Kit can create and deploy control and data-plane applications for product developers to design, test and debug network infrastructure systems, while leveraging the differentiated features and compute power of the XLP multi-core processors.

The XLP multi-core Processor Development Kit includes:
Production-ready development board
Reference schematics, models and guidelines to enable hardware development
Board design and layout guidelines and reference Allegro layout files
Programmer's reference manual and datasheets
Full board support package, including Linux 2.6 64-bit operating system and NetOS data plane environment
Full tool chain and debug environment
Bootloader/BSP and diagnostics
Libraries for accelerating compression/decompression, encryption/decryption, packet ordering, and support of the extensive I/O functions of the processor
Rich set of software for demonstrating and evaluation as well as sample code to ease the process application development
Options for high-speed connectivity, including Interlaken, XAUI, and SGMII, including an interface to NetLogic Microsystems' knowledge-based processors

"We are pleased to deliver a comprehensive hardware and software development kit that allows our customers to quickly go to market with our breakthrough XLP multi-core processor," said Chris O'Reilly, vice president of marketing at NetLogic Microsystems. "The combination of the industry's most advanced and highly differentiated multi-core processor along with a turnkey development kit gives us a strong leadership position in high-end multi-core communications processing well ahead of our competition."

The XLP multi-core, multi-threaded processor family integrates up to 128 NXCPUs that operate at up to 2.0 GHz and are based on a superscalar engine with out-of-order execution capabilities to deliver data plane and control plane performance, and the ability to support billions of in-flight messages and packet descriptors. The XLP cores are quad-threaded to minimize bottlenecks and memory latencies that are predent in network data plane processing applications. The 128 NXCPUs are equipped with a tri-level cache architecture with over 50 Mbytes of fully coherent on-chip cache which delivers 160 Terabits/sec of extremely high-speed on-chip memory bandwidth.