Alcatel-Lucent this week announced the FP3 chip, which is a 400 Gigabits per second network chip. The FP3 is the successor to the 100 Gigabits per second FP2, which was announced in March of 2008 The FP3 has 288 array cores, while the FP2 has 112 cores.
By having a 400 Gigabit chip, Alcatel-Lucent will be able to help accelerate the adoption of 100 Gigabit Ethernet (100 GbE). With FP3, Alcatel-Lucent will be able to build higher density line cards that can support multiple 100 GbE interfaces. The FP3 will also be used in a 20 port, 10 GbE card and a six port 40 GbE card.
The first FP3 powered line cards will be available for Alcatel-Lucent’s in-market routers including the 7750 Service Router (SR), in early 2012. Moderres noted that FP3 provides for investment protection for current Alcatel-Lucent equipment owners to help meet the need of the next generation of traffic.
“This is only the beginning as having the FP3 silicon allows us to use this technology in other configurations that benefit from the density,” Houman Moderres, IP marketing director at Alcatel-Lucent told InternetNews.com. “For example, as we look beyond 100 GbE to what is likely to be the next natural interface, which will likely be 400 Gigabit Ethernet.”
