Fujitsu Microelectronics Europe (FME) is shipping an evaluation platform targeting equipment manufacturers building multi-service provisioning platforms (MSPPs). The MB87M2181 evaluation platform is based on Fujitsu's Ethos SoC (system-on-chip) running a real-time Linux OS for “convenient software development,” Fujitsu says.

(Click for larger view of MB87M2181 evaluation platform)

NetworkWorld defines MSPPs as devices that “enable service providers to offer customers new bundled services at the transport, switching, and routing layers of the network.” MSPPs can “dramatically decrease the time it takes to provision new services, while improving the flexibility of adding, migrating or removing customers,” the publication says.

Fujitsu says products designed using its evaluation platform can replace multi-shelf systems with a single card in a “pizza box” enclosure. The compact “single-chip MSPP” design is optimized for OC-3/STM-1 and OC-12/STM-4 applications, it says, and suits deployment in remote terminal or CPE (customer premises equipment) applications where service density does not justify more expensive MSPPs, Fujitsu says.

Potential applications include mobile environments, as well as SDH/Ethernet metropolitan network access equipment, inter-building private network backbones, and multi-site company neworks using metropolitan networks. The platform was developed in cooperation with optical networking specialist AirCom.

Diagram of typical multi-site company network application
Source: AirCom
(Click to enlarge)
The MB87M2181 development platform appears to be based on an unspecified 32-bit PowerPC control-plane processor, along with Fujitsu's “ETHernet Over SDH/Sonet” (ETHOS) SoC. The ETHOS SoC is said to provide “all [required] functions for a hybrid SDH/SONET and data multiplexer/mapper,” along with “full-rate GbE transport over SDH/SONET.” It integrates SDH/SONET framers and pointer processors, PDH mappers, expansion interfaces, a cross-connect, and G.813 SEC / GR-1244 Stratum-3 network element timing functions, according to Fujitsu.

The MB87M2181 development platform offers an “interactive online scripting environment” that simplifies configuration and prototyping, along with a “Linux real-time OS” that offers convenient software development, Fujitsu says.

Mark Ellins, director of communications at FME commented, “This new device underlines Fujitsu's commitment to rolling-out a growing product portfolio of ASSPs for telecom access applications.”

David Drew, CEO of Australian edge and multiplexing specialist Haliplex, said, “The Fujitsu ETHOS development system enabled us to run parallel engineering efforts in software and hardware. The open nature of the software has been a delight.”

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