The TPACK SOFTSILICON Concept combines the advantages of standard ASSP chips with the flexibility of FPGA chips to provide Telecom Equipment Manufacturers with the ability to accelerate system development, at low risk while also accommodating unforeseen future requirements.

SOFTSILICON is a standard chip product, similar to Application Specific Standard Products (ASSPs), providing a full and comprehensive feature set for a given application. But, more importantly, SOFTSILICON is also a fully re-programmable chip solution allowing functions and interfaces to be modified, extended or deleted to new market requirements and end-customer demands.

SOFTSILICON is based on Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) technology, which is used in a wide variety of applications. FPGAs are fully re-programmable and are available in a number of standard sizes. The latest generations of FPGA now provide enough logic and internal memory to support even the most demanding applications. This allows advanced chip products to be offered, such as SOFTSILICON products.

A SOFTSILICON solution includes:

• A target Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) device, which is normally a standard, commercially available product
• An FPGA image used to define and configure the FPGA device (the heart of the SOFTSILICON solution)
• A High-Level Driver Software with intuitive Application Programming Interface (API) designed to hide the complexity of chip configuration
• A Reference System available for customer demonstration and evaluation of SOFTSILICON features, which includes reference application and management software

SOFTSILICON provides a pre-defined set of features with configuration options. Using SOFTSILICON a Telecom Equipment Manufacturer can develop a highly flexible system quickly and with low risk, due to the availability of a Reference System for comparison.

A SOFTSILICON solution is provided in the same manner as commercial chip solutions with a business model similar to ASSPs. For more info see TPACK Business Concept.

If more customization is required, a SOFTSYSTEM solution can be provided, which allows complete freedom of definition to the customer. TPACK can also assist in providing a SOFTSYSTEM solution that includes all the necessary software for such a system. See SOFTSYSTEM Explained for more details.

SMARTPACK is TPACK's family of SOFTSYSTEM Solutions and SOFTSILICON Products for carrier class packet transport. See SMARTPACK Products for more information.