Evolving packet processing by a factor of 1000

Part III: IP routing: The FP5 chipset

Nokia’s FP5 IP router chipset has been a design four years in the making, the latest iteration of a near 20-year-old packet processing architecture.

The 3-device chipset FP5 is implemented using a 7nm CMOS process. The design uses 2.5D stacked memory and is the first packet processor with 112 gigabit-per-second (Gbps) serialiser-deserialiser (serdes) interfaces. Also included are line-rate hardware encryption engines on the device’s ports.

Ken Kutzler

What hasn’t been revealed are such metrics as the chipset's power consumption, dimensions and transistor count.

Ken Kutzler​, vice president of IP routing hardware at Nokia IP Networks Division, says comparing transistor counts of chips is like comparing software code: one programmer may write 10,000 lines while another may write 100 lines yet both may execute the same algorithm.

“It’s not always the biggest and baddest chip in the world that compares well,” says Kutzler.

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Nokia's 4.8-terabit FP5 packet-processing chipset

Part 1: IP routing: Nokia's latest FP5 and router platforms 

Nokia has unveiled its latest packet-processing silicon that will be the mainstay of its IP router platforms for years to come.

The FP5 chipset is rated at 4.8 terabits-per-second (Tbps), a twelvefold improvement in Nokia’s packet-processing silicon performance in a decade. (See chart.)

Source: Nokia, Gazettabyte

Communications service provider (CSP) BT says Nokia’s 7750 router platforms equipped with the FP5 chipset will deliver every use case it needs for its Multi Service Edge; from core routing, MPLS-VPN, broadband network gateways (BNG), to mobile backhaul and Ethernet.

The FP5 announcement comes four years after Nokia unveiled its existing flagship router chipset, the FP4. The FP4 was announced as a 2.4Tbps chipset but Nokia upgraded its packet-processing rating to 3Tbps.

Heidi Adams

“We announced what we knew but then, through subsequent development and testing, the performance ended up at 3Tbps,” says Heidi Adams, head of IP and optical networks marketing at Nokia.

The FP5 may also exceed its initial 4.8Tbps rating.

Nokia will use the FP5 to upgrade its existing platforms and power new router products; it will not license the chipset nor will it offer it for use in open router platforms.

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