Sun Neptune

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Neptune, also known as Sun Multithreaded 10 GbE, is a dual 10 Gbit/s, multithreaded, PCIe x8-based network card. It was developed and originally produced by Sun Microsystems, and later licensed to Marvell[1].

A Neptune-based NIC is integrated in UltraSPARC T2 CPUs (Network Interface Unit, or NIU)[2].

Contents

[edit] NIC Features

Stand-alone vs on-chip (NIU) Neptune Features[3]
Features NIU PCI-E NIC
# 10GbE ports 2 2
# transmit DMA channels/port 8 12
# receive DMA channels/port 8 8
integrated on-chip? UltraSPARC T2 no
bus interface? no 8 lane PCI Express
bus bandwidth limit? no 16 Gbit/s each direction
transmit packet classification software software
receive packet classification hardware hardware

[edit] References

  1. ^ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/04/03/marvell_sun_nicsic/
  2. ^ 10 Gigabit Ethernet on UltraSPARC T2 - weblog from Pure See
  3. ^ 10 Gigabit Ethernet on UltraSPARC T2 - weblog from Pure See

[edit] See also

[edit] External links