XLP500 Series. Photo: Broadcom

[Via Satellite 04-01-2014] Broadcom Corporation will be expanding its XLP2 multi-core communications processors family with the XLP500 series, which delivers up to four times the per-core performance of competing processors.

The XLP500 series features 32 NXCPUs and 80 Gbps performance, and provides the processing performance and agility needed to simplify Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) and Software Defined Networking (SDN) deployment. Performance is achieved with a quad-issue, quad-threaded superscalar architecture with out-of-order execution. Broadcom’s StrataXGS switch series supports the open NFV platform, which aids in streamlining the development process, optimizing power requirements, reducing hardware costs and improving time-to-market.

“Rapid growth in network traffic has expedited the adoption of SDN and NFV by carriers in order to cost-effectively overlay control and compute power onto their existing infrastructure,” said Linley Gwennap, principal analyst at The Linley Group and editor-in-chief of the Microprocessor Report. “The combination of four-issue superscalar execution and four-way multithreading is unique among embedded processors and the XLP500 Series raises the bar for embedded processors that are optimized for communications.”