Next Generation of Encryption and Compression Solutions by Exar

Exar Corporation announced the Hifn Technology 8200 series of PCI-Express Applied Services Processors (ASPs), for the next-generation storage and networking applications. This four device high-performance 8200 series offers customers the industry’s most power-efficient encryption and compression solutions for platforms ranging from SOHO to Enterprise markets.

 
The massive increase in the amount of digital content and the wide-spread adoption of virtualization in the Enterprise is straining the storage and networking infrastructure, as well as the compute resources necessary to process the content. These challenges are not confined to just high-end platforms but are impacting cost-sensitive consumer/SOHO environments as well. The 8200 series processors offload the computationally intensive tasks necessary to compress, deduplicate, and secure data both in block form for storage applications and packet form for networking applications.
 
“We have found that by offloading functions from the host CPU onto dedicated processors like the 8200 series, we can build more robust products that offer high-performance without impacting power consumption or sacrificing data integrity,” said Ji Hao, senior hardware engineer, ZTE Corporation. “We researched all of our options for adding compression and security capabilities and the Exar 8200 series stood out as the best combination of performance, power, and cost.”
 
The 8200 series architecture is capable of simultaneously encrypting, compressing, and hashing data at up to 750 Mbytes/second, which would require multiple, dedicated enterprise-class quad core, dual-threaded x86 processors to achieve the same level of performance. While processors in this category each easily consume 100 Watts or more, the 8200 series perform these tasks at a typical power of less than 2 Watts. When these types of tasks are off-loaded from the host CPU, freed-up compute cycles can be used for their intended functions such as serving web pages, or performing database searches. Alternatively, if additional host CPU cycles are not needed, system cost and/or power consumption can be decreased by moving to lower performance or lower power CPUs.
 
“The beauty of the 8200 series is the flexibility that it offers our customers,” said Alex Aali, director of marketing at Exar. “The 8200 series scales from cost-sensitive applications like SOHO NAS platforms, to enterprise class storage and networking platforms. The breadth of products and ability to scale to multi-chip configurations allow for a wide range of options.”
 
About the 8200 Series
The Hifn Technology 8200 series is comprised of four devices, all of which in a single pass, compress, encrypt and perform hash/authentication functions on the data, enabling the superior performance rate.

• 8201 – Up to 150 Mbytes/sec; .6W typical power consumption
• 8202 – Up to 300 Mbytes/sec; .8W typical power consumption
• 8203 – Up to 600 Mbytes/sec; 1.2W typical power consumption
• 8204 – Up to 750 Mbytes/sec; 1.9W typical power consumption

All of the devices support the current and newest encryption algorithms including AES-GCM and Elliptical Curve Cryptography used in Suite B applications, industry-standard lossless compression algorithms LZS, eLZS, as well as GZIP generally used for file and http compression applications, and the key authentication/hash algorithms which are imperative for accelerating deduplication. All four devices deliver a high performance Public Key engine that supports up to 14k RSA operations per second. The 8200 series offers the popular PCIe interface and comes standard with an SDK that supports Exar’s proprietary APIs, as well as the Intel QuickAssist functional APIs. The 8200 series is packaged in a small 15mm x 15mm HSBGA package, offering the highest performance and functionality per watt and footprint in the industry.  Additionally, the 8200 series supports open source applications such as OpenSSL and OpenSwan.  The company is expected to announce card solutions based on single and multi-chip configurations in the near future.
 
Availability and Pricing
Samples of all four devices as well as evaluation cards are available now with general availability of the series scheduled for March, 2010. OEM pricing starts at $26 in volume quantities.