New High Performance PowerQUICC Software

Anonymous Reader writes “Arabella Software, a leading supplier of “Customized Linux Solutions” for embedded applications based on Freescale processors containing PowerPC® cores, today announced its EFP (Expedited Fast Path) Products – a revolutionary line of all software solutions designed to boost system-level throughput 5-10 times that of existing software packages. Based on Arabella’s Asymmetrical Multi-Processor architecture and using microcode acceleration blocks for Freescale’s communications processor module (CPM) and QUICC Engine™, EFP products offer unparalleled performance on standard PowerQUICC processors. The first EFP products will include EFP Bridging, a fully integrated bridging solution and EFP-Tri, a triple-play services solution.

Arabella will be demonstrating the EFP Bridging solution at the Freescale Technology Forum this week in Orlando. A side-by-side comparison will show the EFP Bridging solution running at 250K packets per second compared to the currently available Linux bridging solution, which runs at only 50K packets per second. This represents a 5 times performance increase on a 400MHz MPC8280 PowerQUICC II processor with 264MHz CPM just by using the EFP Bridging software.

The EFP product line is based on an innovative system-level concept called Asymmetrical Multi-Processing (AMP). AMP exploits the fact that most embedded communications applications can be partitioned into fast-path and slow-path functions. Fast-path operations are implemented in CPM or QUICC Engine microcode and aggressively optimized for maximum performance. The asymmetry of the application (fast/slow-paths) is matched by the asymmetry of the two processors (fast/generic). By aligning these carefully, the EFP products provide functionality and unparalleled levels of performance that were previously only possible on much higher-priced processors.

EFP products can be licensed as complete solutions available under a modified version of Arabella Linux, or they can be licensed separately as components and integrated with other control-plane stacks and/or operating systems. When offered as a complete solution with Arabella Linux, customers know up front what their performance will be and can eliminate the risk associated with combining protocols and operating systems from different vendors.”