On Sun, 22 Sep 2002, Koji Hino wrote:

From: Vadim Antonov <avg@exigengroup.com> Date: Sat, 21 Sep 2002 03:06:56 -0700 (PDT) :> The CPUs are quite faster nowadays, and you can get things like _quad_ :> 300MHz PPC core on an FPGA plus 20+ 3.2Gbps serdes I/Os - all on one chip. :> So building multigigabit software router is a no-brainer.

Usual PCs don't have such fancy hardware...

They have quite fancier stuff inside, actually, from a technology point of view. Your run-of-the-mill Pentium IV requires a lot more advanced technology for design and manufacturing than the "platform FPGA" I referred to. The enormous design costs for those marvels of engineering are only bearable because of high volume.

If you call it software router, then all "network processor based router" should also be called software router, right?

"Software router" in my book is something which relies on programmable general-purpose devices for implementing packet routing functions. Network processors do not qualify (though they're nice, when they are actually available, which is not often - because chip vendors tend to drop niche products pronto when in a bind). One thing I learned well is to keep exotic stuff out of designs, because it never seems to be available w/o high-volume commitments, and even then tends to come a year later and full of "design features". --vadim