Fulcrum Ships Clockless Switch Chip

CALABASAS HILLS, Calif. -- Fulcrum Microsystems today announced general availability of the PivotPoint FM1010, the industry's first SPI-4.2 switch chip.

The FM1010 is a six-port System Packet Interface 4 Phase 2 (SPI-4.2) switch chip for seamlessly interconnecting devices (such as transceivers, NPUs, traffic managers, co-processors, and custom ASICs and FPGAs) used in high-performance networking and storage applications. PivotPoint replaces discrete daisy-chain designs and inflexible system buses, converting a fixed hardware configuration into a soft-assignable array of computing and packet processing resources.

A hardware development kit is also now available that features the FM1010 on a modular reference board simplifying the evaluation of the chip alongside other SPI-4.2 devices. The kit includes reference software, a design guide, and all of the electronic files necessary for easy integration of the FM1010 into a board design.

"The flexibility that PivotPoint introduces into a design has struck a chord with designers who are running up against chip-interconnect limitations as they develop the next generation of configurable communications platforms," said Mike Zeile, Fulcrum vice president of marketing. "We are very excited to see this level of success for the chip so early in its lifecycle."

Fulcrum Microsystems Inc.