Based on NetLogic Microsystems’ revolutionary 3rd generation Intelligent Fabric for Automata (IFA) content processing engine, the newest family of NETL7 Knowledge-based Processor is the industry’s first processor to achieve 120-Gigabits per second of deterministic deep packet inspection (DPI) performance.  The full-custom, single chip solution offers a novel architecture optimal for implementing distributed DPI on high-performance enterprise, data center and carrier-class and router line cards. The processor’s 6-way superscalar architecture enables parallel processing of up to six independent applications, while at the same time providing dynamic rules update without stopping network flow traffic or system downtime.

Figure 1: Application Diagram
NLS2008 supports 2 XAUI interfaces and 4 independent PCI-E DMA controllers,
totaling 6 virtual device operations with aggregate throughput of 20Gbps

The newest family of NETL7 Knowledge-based Processor integrates hundreds of thousands of processing elements together with on-chip database memory to eliminate the memory bandwidth and latency bottleneck encountered by existing alternative solutions. Additionally, deterministic predictability at wire speed performance is preserved across an even wider and richer rule syntax than conventional Perl Compatible Regular Expressions (PCRE).

With cross packet inspection support of up to 96 million simultaneous network flows, the newest generation of NETL7 maintains deterministic wire speed performance even with the most complex of signature databases, including wild cards and regular expressions. This extended capability elevates content inspection as a integral enabling piece to intrusion, malware prevention, and application identification.