10GE router resource

Wed Mar 26 23:27:55 UTC 2008

> High-rate routers try to keep the packets in an SRAM queue 
> and instead of looking up destinations in a DRAM-based radix 
> tree, they use a special memory device called a TCAM.

FPGAs can be used to do both SRAM and TCAMs. All that is needed
is an FPGA board with 10G or a 10G card with an FPGA on it.
Although NetFPGA and RiceNIC are both 1G devices, there is a
certain commercial market for programmable high-speed network cards
for things like Intrusion Detection and data-center/GRID type
applications. 

Anyone seriously interested in this area should start hunting amongst
the developers (and researchers) of embedded systems. You might end
up working with a university student in the Czech Republic to put his
TCAM/FPGA implementation onto a 10G card because the Internet breaks
down the barriers that high-margin vendors have used to create lock-in.
Bleeding edge networks may not be able to do this type of deal
but then, they are only 1% or less of the network operators out there.

--Michael Dillon