The Combinatorial IP FPGA Soft-Processor And Multicast FPGA IP Router Core                     By SNAPP Technologies Corporation

There are two fundamental components needed and necessary for the emergence of the "next Internet"; an increase in distribution of bandwidth and scalability of computational processing…

With its innovative product line, SNAPP Technologies Corporation (STC) builds portable, scalable  multiprocessing OEM products targeting Internet device manufacturers to better position their product lines for emerging Internet markets such as IPTV, “On Demand” media and video conferencing. STC's SNAPP Soft-Processing objects can bring infinite n(X) internal scalability to computer systems, Internet equipment, and embedded solutions using its combinatorial design architecture.      

IP MULTICAST

The current Internet and large scale network implementations are connected and maintained by an ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) based framework. The ATM structure typically delivers a data/signal packet in the form of a “point to point” exchange. Although this “point to point” packet delivery happens very rapidly and many times throughout the functionality of the Internet - it is still “point to point” and limited by RAM bandwidth. Rapidly emerging Internet markets such as Internet TV (IPTV), “On Demand” media, video conferencing, Internet gaming, music and enterprise information distribution are becoming more readily available to the consumer public. These markets could greatly benefit from multicast Internet connectivity. Currently, streaming video is very common for high speed connections but does not work like a channel broadcast such as in a TV or satellite connection because of its point to point limitations. As it is for Internet TV, most implementations have a data stream for every spectator. IP multicasting sends a single data stream out to other Internet routers, which, in turn, replicates each data packet for every member of the audience. This technique brings a significant value and savings shrinking fixed costs such as with equipment and bandwidth. IP broadcasting costs remain constant no matter how many users log on viewing a transmission.  With multicasting, providers of Internet-TV could make Internet broadcasting technically feasible and commercially justified with the need of having only one data stream out of an IP Broadcast Station.

Computation Market

As cell phones start to compete with the desktops for user's email functionality, there is a growing interest in building "smarter" logic for mobile, medical devices, as well as consumer electronics. Advancements in electronic logic means faster devices that are easier to use for the consumer. Current internal processor architectures are fixed and stand alone. Although clock speeds and cycles increase and performance benchmarks improve, the architecture of the processor has seen little internal change in recent years. The main reason for improving the processor’s internal performance and maintaining this legacy is because most software applications are written and designed in a uni-processor way. With processing architectures directly influencing software performance and the software framework limiting the change to the processor’s architecture; the constant technical and market drivers of computing performance leaves this natural paradox for processor and semiconductor makers to continue to maintain this legacy. Current processors follow Moore’s law – the microprocessor industry as well as other players such as Intel and AMD all face tremendous challenges to move current designs and architectures forward. High speed processors are reaching the limits of material science and pushing the boundaries of silicon technology.

STC's SNAPP (Shared Network Acceleration Parallel Processing) Objects implements scalable parallel processing properties to systems and data without change to application code. The SNAPP Objects are:  

Multicast Internet

·      The SNAPP Multicast Router Core (FPGA) - OEM firmware component that adds infinite scalability to any existing network product line. Focusing primarily on the enterprise network equipment market, this FPGA routing IP core will implement broadcasting capabilities, at a cost effective price, within Internet and network routers. In comparison with existing architectures, STC’s Multicast Router allows any standard network equipment/product line to create Internet devices with less number of interconnections between processing elements, reducing operational load and achieving packet delivery at “bare-wire” speeds. With this increase in speed and ability to scale TCP/IP packet size/delivery, STC can scale the stream beyond the IP (point to point) and deliver true multicasting.

Computational

·      The SNAPP Soft Processor Core (FPGA) - The SNAPP Processor Core is a break-through in processor technology leveraging combinatorial processing element architecture. The SNAPP core is an EPIC (Explicitly Parallel Instruction Computing) processor which can facilitate instruction and sub-instruction level computational parallelism. Using the SNAPP architecture, customers will be able to scale computational power to meet their demands by seamlessly linking the SNAPP cores together to create a mesh of processors which will operate as one. The most significant aspect of the SNAPP architecture is that sequential software applications do not need to be re-written to be accelerated by the parallel architecture.