Cavium Inc. is joining the market for specialized network processors known as list-search engines.  These processors used ternary content-addressable memory (CAM) to search for specific packet content in long lists.  Cavium is launching the NEURON Search and NEURONMAX search engines, which operate at Layers 2 through 4 of the OSI networking stack, and can work with all IPv4 and IPv6 rules.

NEURON replaces up to four 40-Mbit TCAMs, while NEURONMAX can enable virtually limitless expansion for applications in both enterprise and service-provider markets.  NEURON supports between 100 million and 1.6 billion searches per second, while NEURONMAX uses external DDR3 memory to provide limitless expansion of both searches and rule sets.  Both families are designed to interface directly to Cavium's Octeon II network processors.

The software development kits for both NEURON and NEURONMAX, which include simulator, compiler, and rule update manager, are available today.  Both families of processors will be in production in the first calendar quarter of 2012.