Infineon Technologies Announces ATM Buffer Manager for High-speed Access and Wireless Networks; Rate

Munich – November 28, 2001 – Infineon Technologies (FSE/NYSE: IFX), a world leading provider of integrated circuits for advanced communications systems, today announced a new version of its Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) Buffer Manager for price sensitive markets. Named ABM-3G, the new chip acts as a “traffic controller” directing, prioritizing and controlling the flow of voice, video and digital data within telecommunications networks while ensuring Quality of Service (QoS). Offering high-performance and competitive pricing the new central component is targeted at next generation wireless infrastructure systems, WAN switches and DSLAM/DLC solutions.

“Key requirements for traffic management ICs in the high-speed access and wireless markets include scalability, to support a large number of lines in a small footprint, and rate adaptive features to help providers deliver assured Quality of Service,” said Christian Wolff, vice president in Infineon’s Communications Group and General Manager of the Access Business Unit. “Drawing on our experience in delivering high integration ICs for network switch and line card applications, the newest addition to the Infineon ABM family provides the performance and high-port density needed to exceed all requirements for standards-based OC-12 networks.”

Designed to provide traffic management and shaping functions for ATM switches and Access Multiplexing applications, the new ATM Buffer Manager, ABM-3G, gives system vendors flexible service differentiation by supporting up to 16 traffic classes with individually selectable thresholds. Weighted Fair Queuing (WFQ) secures Quality of Service (QoS) for delay sensitive traffic by applying strong fairness criteria in the utilization of all available bandwidth, while guaranteeing a throughput of up to 687Mbps.

Targeted at the more price sensitive market, such as Metro Access Networks, the ABM-3G enables system vendors to significantly reduce development time and costs. These are achieved partially due to simplified command schemes utilizing message-based interface (API) and Operating System (OS) independent drivers for easier software development.

The ABM-3G provides enhanced scheduler performance thereby enabling better traffic management on the loop; with up to 128 schedulers in bi-directional mode or 256 schedulers in uni-directional mode the ABM-3G can assign 1 ADSL port per scheduler for up to 255 ADSL ports thus guaranteeing QoS. Other features are non-blocking backpressure, VC-Merge (for MPLS support), operating power of 3.3V (I/O) and 1.8V (core), and power dissipation of approximately 2W.

Pricing and Availability

Infineon’s ABM-3G chip supports all relevant ATM Forum and ITU-T standards. Packaged in a P-BGA-456, the ABM PXF 4333 V1.1 is priced at US$150 in 1k quantities. Engineering samples are available now.