Specifications

About StarFabric Connectivity
8 Aurora Technologies
StarFabric and Other Next-Generation
Solutions
The choices for system designers of next-generation switched connectivity solu-
tions are many, but choosing the right solution is difficult. The fact is many next-
generation connectivity technologies are focused on specific areas in a network, so
some are better than others for specific applications.
FIGURE 5. Where StarFabric Fits in Next-Generation Connectivity
Figure 5 shows the specific areas of focus for the most common legacy and next-
generation connectivity technologies. As you can see, StarFabric is ideal for
upgrading the backplane (control and data traffic planes) or speeding up and
extending room-scale connectivity for existing I/O Area Networks (IANs) such as
legacy PCI and CompactPCI environments. StarFabric can help with your system-
to-system and storage system connectivity needs by deploying StarFabric-enabled
bridges and switches at the network edges or in the backbone.
A solution such as HyperTransport may provide higher bandwidth than StarFabric,
but it also requires a higher number of signalling pins, making it a more complex
and expensive solution, especially for switching. StarFabric’s 5.0 Gbps full duplex
bandwidth provides more than enough throughput for even the most demanding
connectivity applications and its low number of signalling pins means reduced