Cypress NSEs support Intel NPUs

Cypress Semiconductor Corp. has announced the availability of cycle-accurate C models of its Ayama 20000 LA-1 attach Network Search Engines (NSEs).

Offering 266MSPS, the Ayama 20000 NSE provides advanced support for Intel IXP2400/2800/2850 network processors units (NPUs). The NSE software models are interoperable with Intel NPUs as well as with the Intel software development kit (SDK) v3.1.

The NSEs use the LA-1 interface to connect to multiple network NPUs. It's cycle-accurate C-model plugs seamlessly into the foreign-object model (FOM) interface of Intel's NPU transactor models. This allows software engineers to perform early prototyping and software development, even before the availability of hardware.

The software interoperability between the NSEs and Intel NPUs is demonstrated using a quintuple lookup in a typical Layer 3 IPv4 switch reference application. The Ayama 20000 NSE C-model ships as part of Cypress's Cynapse Software Platform that includes table managers, device drivers, reference applications and diagnostics.