Netbricks and Wintegra Announce Partnership to Give Telecom and Networking Equipment Makers Competitive Advantage

Successful Integration of ATM and ISDN Protocol Software with WinPath Access Packet Processor Wins Customers Developing Leading Edge Technology

Orsay, France and Austin, Texas - June 5, 2002 - Netbricks™ SA, a leading developer and supplier of portable communication protocol software to telecommunications equipment developers, networking manufactures and OEMs, and Wintegra™ , Inc., a fabless semiconductor company enabling the next generation of access networks, today announced a partnership that will result in general availability of the Netbricks ATM-BRICKS and ISDN-BRICKS™ software stacks on Wintegra's WinPath™ Access Packet Processor. The ATM-BRICKS suite, which provides ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) signaling capabilities, has already been ported to the WinPath processor, which consists of a 200 MHz MIPS 5Kc RISC core and a series of proprietary, symmetric protocol engines. The porting of the ISDN-BRICKS suite is underway, with general availability scheduled for 3Q2002.

The ATM protocol is one of the most popular communications and data transfer protocols, and its signaling capabilities are critical to overall system operation. ISDN is an important broadband protocol used to manage converged voice and data traffic in a wide range of network applications. Both are integral to communications access infrastructure equipment makers who use WinPath and this partnership will greatly accelerate equipment designer's time to market. The partnership has already successfully garnered mutual customers for both companies.

Equipment makers increasingly look at integration of protocols and hardware to cut development time and gain or maintain a competitive advantage. Networking and telecommunications OEMs developing emerging technologies such as Voice over DSL (VoDSL), Voice Gateway, Next Generation Networks (NGN) and Softswitch can incorporate Netbricks tested and verified protocol stacks facilitating quicker time to market with more reliable software.

The WinPath family of processors came to market last November as a first-of-its-kind solution for communications equipment operators who need the flexibility of a network processor and the predictability and performance of a communications processor, incorporated into a single-chip solution. WinPath provides an extremely rich set of layer 2 and layer 3 protocol software and hardware acceleration for management of ATM and IP voice and data traffic. To date, the company has announced over 25 design wins with customers all over the world as WinPath is designed into devices such as base stations, media gateways, access multiplexors (DSLAMs), service switches and enterprise routers.

Netbricks ATM signaling and ISDN stacks are among the most comprehensive in the industry, with the ATM-BRICKS including support for signaling at User to Network Interface (UNI) and Network to Network Interface (NNI) in accordance with ATM Forum UNI 3.0, 3.1 and 4.0 standards, and support for ITU recommendations Q.2931, Q.2110 (SSCOP) and Q.2130 and Q.2140 (SSCF). It also supports ILMI 4.0, and AAL2 signaling via recommendations Q.2630 and Q.2150. The ISDN-BRICKS implementation is fully compliant with ITU and ETSI standards, and includes BRI and PRI support, QSIG (BC and GF), and AutoSPID and AutoSwitch capability.

"Netbricks' standards-based, modular software solutions and source-licensing business model is ideal for Wintegra customers who are seeking to accelerate time to market," said Michael Phillip, Wintegra's Vice President of Software Systems. "The integration of Netbricks control plane stacks with Wintegra's extensive data path software provides a very complete solution for ATM and ISDN access infrastructure applications."

"The WinPath packet processor is an excellent fit for our Netbricks software, and permits our mutual customers to fully leverage the performance and flexibility of our ATM and ISDN solutions," said Didier Raffenoux, CEO of Netbricks. "We view the partnership with Wintegra as a significant example of the growing importance of providing integrated solutions, and believe our customers will be extremely pleased with the results of our collaboration."

The Netbricks integration effort leverages Wintegra's C-based API (Application Program Interface) for their Data Path Software, leading to completion of the port in weeks rather than months. A reference implementation was completed on the WinPath Evaluation Board (WEB), running Wind River's VxWorks™ real-time operating system (RTOS).

For more information, contact Cam Witt of Wintegra, at cam.witt@wintegra.com, or Angeline Carassou of Netbricks, at angeline.carassou@netbricks.net

About Netbricks SA
Headquartered in Orsay, France, Netbricks (formerly Omnitel) is a leading developer and supplier of portable software compliant with protocol specifications as published by the governing institutions around the world. In business since 1989, Netbricks supplies its source code software and hardware/software technologies to over 350 major telecommunications equipment developers, networking manufacturers and OEMs, worldwide. Netbricks solutions enables customers to achieve a low risk, fast time-to-market with reduced development costs while creating leading edge equipment. The companies' expertise in software covers ATM, SS7, ISDN, X25, V5, and MODEM / FAX / Softmodem, as examples. Today, Netbricks has solutions in software for the new emerging technologies in VoPacket, Voice Gateway, Next generation networks (NGN) - MGCP, SIP / SIP-T, MEGACO / H.248, and Sigtran.

About Wintegra, Inc.
Founded in January 2000, Wintegra, Inc. is a fabless semiconductor company that enables communications infrastructure equipment providers to migrate their product lines toward the next generation of access networks with a family of single chip solutions. The company's mission is to be the #1 provider of protocol-handling components in the access infrastructure. Its WinPath™ access packet processor family offers best in class aspects of ASICs, network processors, communications processors, and standard peripherals, creating a new approach to protocol handling. Wintegra has announced more than 25 design wins with numerous customers including Tier 1s, and expects to ramp production in late second quarter of 2002. For more information, go to www.wintegra.com.

Back to News Releases & Press Articles >>