The ARM RISC pops up everywhere in VLSI Technology Inc’s product line, and it also stars in a Fibre Channel high-speed networking chip set licensed to VLSI by Enulex Corp’s Emulex Network Systems, Costa Mesa. The FireFly Fibre Channel chip set is designed to support all Fibre Channel topologies and is optimised for maximum performance in both high-speed local network and high-end peripheral input-output environments, and Emulex went for the Cambridge, UK chip designer’s ARM RISC core before deciding to license the design to VLSI Technology. The FireFly chip set is designed to support full-duplex performance at all three Fibre Channel speeds – 1.062Gbps, 531Mbps, 266Mbps – over copper or fibre optic cabling, and consists of a Fibre Channel encoder-decoder and the ARM RISC-based protocol engine with PCI bus interface. It is designed to support all implementations of the Fibre Channel standard, including ar bitrated loop, point-to- point and switched fabric topologies. VLSI customers will use the Emulex design to develop their own ASIC implementations, enabling them to introduce low-cost custom Fibre Channel prod ucts, starting next year.
