The world's lowest latency network switch uses Cypress QDR-IV SRAM

     Cypress Semiconductor, a market leader in static random access memory (SRAM), announced that network equipment manufacturer Exablaze selected Cypress's QDR-IV SRAM for its ExaLINK Fusion network switches. The switch uses a modular design that interconnects the Xilinx Ultrascale FPGA with QDR-IV memory. ExaLINK Fusion features Cypress's fastest QDR-IV device at 1066 MHz, the highest random access rate (RTR) memory on the market.

     RTR stands for number of full random access memory accesses per second and is a key indicator of memory performance that affects the rate of high-speed line cards and switches. ExaLINK Fusion leverages the high RTR and low latency of Cypress QDR-IV devices to perform regular Layer 2 exchanges in 110 nanoseconds (the industry's smallest latency), which is two to three times the performance of the best competing products on the market. The platform uses two QDR-IV Srams per board for caching and package storage. For many delay-sensitive industry applications, such as networking, the QDR-IV SRAM is the choice for FPGA trading platforms, high-performance computing and defense systems.

     Mathew Chapman, CTO of Exablaze, said: "Cypress's QDR-IV SRAM features high RTR, low latency and high bandwidth, which is exactly what our ExaLINK Fusion switch needs to achieve leading performance. The modular design that combines QDR-IV with a high-performance FPGA allows users to configure ExaLINK Fusion to perform multiple tasks efficiently and with low latency, which is exactly what customers have come to expect from Exablaze products."

     Oliver Pohland, Director of the Synchronous SRAM Business Unit at Cypress, said: "QDR-IV offers clear advantages over other memory solutions and is set to play an important role in the next generation of 100G and higher speed switches and routers. We are pleased that Exablaze has selected Cypress's QDR-IV SRAM to fulfill its vision of the lowest-latency network switch on the market."

     The bottleneck to achieving high line card rates is handling lookup tables, statistics and status counts in memory, as well as function scheduling. QDR-IV devices have the RTR required to support these features, enabling higher bandwidth and higher quality video streaming. Cypress's QDR-IV SRAM operates in both 2-byte burst (high performance) and shadow (banked) 2-byte burst (Ultra high performance) modes, achieving the fastest clock speed and RTR of any QDR SRAM. Shadow two-byte burst mode has a maximum operating frequency of 1,066 MHz and an RTR of 2,132 million accesses per second (MT/s), while standard two-byte burst mode has a maximum operating frequency of 667 MHz and an RTR of 1,334 MT/s.

     Cypress's QDR-IV SRAM is available in 144- and 72-Mb capacities. The 144-Mb CY7C41xxKV and 72-Mb CY7C40xxKV QDR-IV SRAM are now in production and packaged in 361 solder Ball Flip Chip Ball Grid Array (FCBGA). The QDR-IV SRAM is the highest performing standardized network memory on the market. Qdr-iv was developed by the QDR Community, whose members jointly define SRAM standards to ensure multiple supply sources and supply stability.