1. Page 1 Industrial Technology Research Institute Computer & Communication Research Laboratories Network Processor +Programmable semiconductor devices for network oriented processing and switching +Helps new technologies get to market faster +Attempts to do for networking what WinTel did for PC +A business projected to grow to more than $600 million by 2002, according to Dataquest Good Poor GoodPoor Price/Performance Flexibility, Time to Market General Purpose Processor General Purpose Processor Expensive, slow High performance Low cost Highly flexible Fast time-to-market Custom ASICs Custom ASICs Network Processor Network Processor Large R&D expenses Short market window

2. Page 2 Industrial Technology Research Institute Computer & Communication Research Laboratories Network Processors Markets +A high-layer packet-analysis and forwarding function currently served by ASICs +A control function for handling multiple routing and switching channels, usually served by a RISC device such as the 960 or StrongARM +An application processor function for specialized duties such as quality-of-service (QoS) bit assignment and virtual-private- network tunnel creation. +In some cases, the network processor offloads critical instructions from the host processor in a system, thereby improving throughput. In other cases, these new processors can replace the host CPU.

3. Page 3 Industrial Technology Research Institute Computer & Communication Research Laboratories Network Processors can do -- in hardware at wire-speed +Routing (L3 switching, L4 switching, MPLS, multi-layer switching, etc.) +Multi-protocol support for LAN and WAN integration +Bandwidth shaping to create CoS and optimize expensive WAN bandwidth +Setting of precedence bits to map CoS into the Internet +Sophisticated QoS support to help provide reliable Voice over IP transmission +High-speed evaluation of QoS tags to help enhance Policy Based Network Management +Per flow queuing and weighted fair queuing +IP multicast for scalable push and multimedia +Mix and convert frames to cells +Network address translation for network security and simplified IP addressing +IP accounting for network design and billing +IP tunneling to create Internet VPNs

4. Page 4 Industrial Technology Research Institute Computer & Communication Research Laboratories Packet Processing Venders + MMC Networks + Intel : based-on i960 RISC architecture (Acquire Level One, Acclaim, and Jato) + TI : Digital Thunder (based -on TMS320C6000 architecture, VoIP) + LSI Logic + Mips Tecnnologies, Inc. : R3000, R4000, R5000 + Motorola : MPC850 + C-Port Corp. : “The Communications Platform Company” + Softcom Microsystems, Inc. + Maker Communications + Sitera, Inc. + T.sqware, Inc. : Edge Processor + XaQti + Agere, Inc. : “Smart Processing for Terabit Networks”, Fast Pattern Processor + Silicon Spice + Maverick Networks (Acquired by Broadcom) + QuickSilver Technology : DSP-intensive Software Radio