Fulcrum Microsystems Unveils ControlPoint 10G Ethernet Switch Management Software Suite

Protocol Software and Tools Let Equipment Providers Bring Feature-Rich Systems to Market Faster
Interop Las Vegas 2007
booth 2453

LAS VEGAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Fulcrum Microsystems® today introduced its ControlPoint™ Software Suite, a family of integrated development and test tools and Ethernet bridging, switching, and management software modules that enable equipment providers to rapidly deliver high-performance networking and embedded switch systems with advanced functionality based on Fulcrum’s market-leading FocalPoint family of switch chips.

“ControlPoint gives our equipment provider customers a modular and extensible set of tools and switching software that allows them to add product differentiators much faster than if they had to develop the software in-house or source it from multiple suppliers,” said Mike Zeile, vice president of marketing for Fulcrum. “Now they can enjoy the benefits of our high-speed, low-latency Ethernet interconnect solutions while quickly adding advanced features and functions to their products, resulting in competitively differentiated products that they can bring to market faster.”

As equipment providers face an increasingly long list of feature requirements from their customers, their ability to add security, switching, and management features must be balanced against getting their products to market quickly in order to recognize revenue. The ControlPoint suite allows providers to deliver these required features faster, giving them a competitive advantage. The comprehensive ControlPoint suite consists of three software components: dynamic stacks, a software development kit (SDK), and development tools.

Dynamic Stacks and Management Framework

ControlPoint’s dynamic stack module leverages the Unified Networking Software (UNS) from NextHop Technologies, a leading developer of switching and routing protocol software. The module builds upon the UNS framework to add Fulcrum’s own powerful software extensions, which expose unique chip capabilities for a variety of vertical applications, such as topology solvers for datacenter scaling, and congestion management extensions for backplane applications in telecom systems.

Software Development Kit (SDK)

The SDK included in the ControlPoint suite comprises TestPoint, Fulcrum's proprietary configuration scripting tool for automating production test and static configuration of FocalPoint devices in embedded applications; an intelligent application programming interface (API), which provides a sophisticated abstraction layer for interfacing the FocalPoint devices to the NextHop software and other applications; drivers for specific FocalPoint devices and other related devices and hardware platforms.

Development Environment (Tools)

The ControlPoint suite also includes ViewPoint, Fulcrum's graphical, web-based FocalPoint register viewer that enables simple and intuitive viewing of chip status during software development, testing, and debug; an Embedded Linux Development Kit (ELDK) for the open Linux 2.6 kernel and the related compiler, debugger development environment; and boot code for a variety of embedded processor families that can be used as the basis for customer-developed system boot code.

“Fulcrum’s new software suite gives us the complete control that allows us to build a flexible and modular architecture, while easily customizing and augmenting the software to add our own differentiating features,” said Larry Genovesi, president and CEO of Terascala. “It's a comprehensive suite that includes innovative development tools that will save us time and get us into the market quickly with new our new high density, power efficient server and storage blade architecture."

Fulcrum will be demonstrating its new ControlPoint suite at booth 2453 at Interop Las Vegas, May 20-25, 2007.

Pricing and Availability

Fulcrum offers several different bundling options for the ControlPoint Software Suite, from discrete stacks to fully-integrated turnkey solutions, depending on the customer requirements and availability of resources. Several customers are currently in development on systems that leverage the ControlPoint suite.

About Fulcrum Microsystems

Fulcrum Microsystems Inc is a fabless semiconductor company focused on developing Ethernet switch chip solutions for next generation board and system designs. The company's devices change the paradigm for interconnects, offering low latency, fine-grained flow control, and high throughput, which combine to simplify the board design and to build in more flexibility and higher scalability. More information can be found at www.fulcrummicro.com.