Vitesse Delivers Sonet Grooming Switch

LAS VEGAS -- Vitesse Semiconductor Corp. (NASDAQ:VTSS - News) today announced a new flagship addition to its SONET/SDH Time Slot Interchange (TSI) grooming switch family, the VSC9295. The device features the industry's highest single chip capacity at 340 Gbps aggregate bandwidth, while lowering power requirements by 25%.

The VSC9295 addresses the requirements of OEMs and system designers of Access and Metro equipment. The new device facilitates the upgrade of equipment capacity and maintains compatibility with the industry's currently deployed infrastructure. This TSI switch is a critical component for the SONET/SDH equipment market, which is expected to exceed $4 billion for the next several years, as reported by the Dell'Oro Group.

The VSC9295 introduces new levels of compatibility and scalability to assist OEMs that are facing fierce competition that requires new service introduction through enhancements to existing SONET/SDH deployments. The VSC9295 enables high reliability and capacity up to 340 Gbps with STS-1 granularity, while providing support for legacy backplanes and ASICs with 622 Mbps interfaces. By utilizing TFI-5 and STS-12 interfaces, the device interfaces easily with a large breadth of existing line cards, backplanes, and ASIC infrastructures.

To reduce chip count and lower cost of larger fabric configurations up to 1.36 Tbps, the VSC9295 provides integrated bit-slicing functionality. Its fully non-blocking, memory-based switch core also contributes to lowering costs by allowing fast, single-step programming that eliminates the need for complex programming algorithms, shortening overall development time.

For mid-range capacity SONET/SDH systems, Vitesse is also introducing the pin-compatible VSC9292 170 Gbps TSI. The device allows OEMs flexibility in building a scalable system and architecture driven by system size and network traffic needs.

"Our customers require a scalable architecture that can reach multi-Terabit capacities and also scale down for more targeted solutions. Vitesse continues to provide scalable, standards-based solutions to make that possible," said Juan Garza, circuit switch product marketing manager for Vitesse. "With the introduction of the VSC9295 TSI, Vitesse again demonstrates its leadership and commitment in high-density circuit switching and delivers the most cost effective, flexible, and scalable solution for SONET and mixed-traffic grooming on the market."

Vitesse Semiconductor Corp.