Ikanos develops high performance semiconductor and software products that enable network equipment manufacturers and service providers to deliver broadband to the digital home. We are the leading supplier in the very-high-bit rate digital subscriber line (VDSL) market, with more than 20 million VDSL central office ports shipped to date, and we are a top provider of network processors and other products that enable the delivery of so-called triple- and quadruple-play services: voice, video and data over wireline and wireless networks. Our products have been deployed by service providers in Asia, Europe and North America and power a range of central office (CO) and customer premises equipment (CPE) including digital subscriber line access multiplexers (DSLAMs), optical network terminals (ONTs), concentrators, modems, voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) terminal adapters and residential gateways (RGs).
Ikanos has a history of innovation in the broadband market. We have developed programmable, scalable chip architectures that directly address the requirements of advanced broadband applications including voice, video and data services. In addition, we have expertise in the creation and integration of unique digital signal processing algorithms that further differentiate our offerings. These capabilities allow us to better support the deployment of new revenue-generating services while keeping service providers’ capital and operating expenditures low.
We outsource all of our semiconductor fabrication, assembly and test functions, which enables us to focus on the design, development, sales and marketing of our products and reduces the level of our capital investment. Our customers consist primarily of original design manufacturers (ODMs), contract manufacturers (CMs), and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), who in turn sell our semiconductors as part of their product-solutions to the service provider market.
We offer multiple product lines. Our high-performance processors are designed for customer premises equipment in the fiber, VDSL and asynchronous digital subscriber line (ADSL) 2+ markets; our VDSL2 standalone chipsets and integrated processors enable the broadband over copper market and provide transmission rates up to 100 megabits per second (Mbps) downstream and upstream; and our integrated processor and ADSL data pump can be used for modems and other devices targeting the ADSL modem market.
Corporate Information
Our principal executive office is located at 47669 Fremont Boulevard, Fremont, CA 94538. Our telephone number at that location is (510) 979-0400. Our website address is www.ikanos.com. This is a textual reference only. We do not incorporate the information on our website into this annual report on Form 10-K, and you should not consider any information on, or that can be accessed through, our website as part of this annual report on Form 10-K. We were incorporated in 1999 as Velocity Communications and changed our name to Ikanos Communications in December 2000. When we reincorporated in Delaware in September 2005, our name changed to Ikanos Communications, Inc.
Acquisitions
In February 2006, we acquired the broadband products product line from Analog Devices, Inc. (ADI), which we refer to as the NPA acquisition, which consists of network processing and ADSL assets, for $32.7 million in cash, including transaction costs of $1.8 million. The NPA acquisition enabled us to enter the residential gateway semiconductor market, allowing us to diversify our product offerings and sell into new markets worldwide.
In February 2008, we purchased DSL technology and related assets from Centillium Communications, Inc. for approximately $11.9 million in cash. The team of engineers, DSL products, technology, patents and other intellectual property allowed us to extend our market leadership as well as accelerate our digital home initiatives and next generation VDSL2 development.
Industry Background
Demand for Broadband Services
The growth of the Internet, the proliferation of advanced digital media and the advancement of communications infrastructure have fundamentally changed the way people work, shop, entertain and communicate. According to researchers at iSuppli, worldwide broadband subscribers will grow from 414 million in 2008 to 721 million by 2013. VDSL and fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) technology will grow to about a third of the market by 2013, with a compounded annual growth rate of approximately 40%. To remain competitive, service providers must deliver more bandwidth and increasing speed to enable revenue-enhancing advanced services. Today, these services include access to advanced digital media, video, communications and interactive broadband applications, including:
Broadcast television;
High definition television (HDTV);
Internet protocol television (IPTV);
Video on demand (VOD);
Interactive television;
Peer-to-peer file sharing;
Sending and receiving advanced digital media such as music, photos and video;
Video conferencing;
Video surveillance;
Streaming video and audio;
Online gaming and game hosting; and
VoIP.
Additionally, users are increasingly creating, interacting with and transmitting advanced digital media. As a result, the ability to send information upstream has become as important as the ability to receive information downstream. For example, applications such as peer-to-peer file sharing or online gaming have the same high bandwidth requirements for both upstream and downstream transmissions. As data and media files increase in size, we believe users will become increasingly dissatisfied with their existing first generation broadband technology, which does not maintain sufficient transmission rates for satisfactory delivery of these advanced digital media, video, communications and interactive broadband applications. The table below compares broadband applications and their bandwidth requirements:
The Service Provider Market Opportunity for Broadband Services
Historically, service providers have used their copper lines primarily for providing basic voice services. While demand for Internet access has increased, traditional basic voice service revenue has experienced little to no growth. Service providers’ legacy voice revenue has also been under pressure due to increased competition from cable multi-service operators and other alternative service providers.
Anticipating a significant increase in advanced communications traffic, service providers upgraded their core and metro area networks with millions of miles of high-capacity optical fiber in the 1990s. However, broadly deploying fiber directly to the end user on the access network to provide high-speed broadband is cost prohibitive and time consuming. As a result, there is an enormous disparity between bandwidth in the fiber network and the bandwidth available to the end user. Given that the majority of Internet users are connected to service providers’ copper lines, the most practical means available to the service providers for delivering interactive broadband services is to utilize their existing copper lines.
In an attempt to meet the growth in demand for Internet access and to supplement their legacy voice revenues, most service providers have deployed first generation broadband technologies in the form of DSL products over copper lines. First generation DSL typically offers transmission rates that are inadequate for providing the bandwidth necessary for advanced digital media, video and communications applications.
Second-generation broadband offerings, specifically the ADSL2 and ADSL2+ standards, were introduced to give service providers the ability to offer basic video, voice and data services, and provided speed improvement over first-generation broadband technologies. While second-generation broadband technologies do not offer the high maximum upstream and downstream data rates of third-generation, or VDSL-based technologies, second-generation broadband technology offerings have achieved market acceptance in early deployments of triple play services.
Third-generation interactive broadband provides a richer user experience through the combination of higher upstream and downstream transmission rates, which, together with customizable applications, such as interactive television, provides more personalized services than broadcast-oriented networks. Moreover, high-speed broadband enables telephone service providers to offer triple play and interactive services that may surpass the services currently provided by cable operators.
To accommodate the requirements of triple play and interactive services, a number of service providers are deploying high-speed broadband services over their existing copper infrastructure. High-performance, interactive broadband technology bridges the bandwidth gap between fiber and copper while avoiding the costs and time of deploying fiber all the way to the premises. This enables service providers to quickly meet the needs of their users and increase their revenues through the delivery of advanced digital media, video, communications and interactive broadband applications while minimizing costs and capital expenditures.
The Ikanos Solution
Ikanos is a leading developer and provider of highly programmable semiconductors that enable high-speed broadband services over service providers’ existing copper lines as well as residential gateways in the home. We have developed these semiconductors using our proprietary semiconductor design techniques, specific purpose digital signal processor and advanced mixed-signal semiconductor design capabilities. Our network processors are used in a range of devices in the digital home, and offer high-performance, integrated VoIP, wireless and DSL, as well as the flexibility and programmability for advanced services such as security, firewall and routing.
Our products form the basis of communications systems that are deployed by service providers in their infrastructure, as well as in the home to enable subscribers to access data, voice and video. We offer highly programmable products that support the multiple international standards used in broadband deployments worldwide, including VDSL, VDSL2, ADSL, ADSL2 and ADSL2+. In addition, our processors are geared to handle gigabit passive optical networks and Ethernet passive optical networks FTTH interfaces and provide wire speed switching performance for FTTH deployments.
We have incorporated features and functions into our products that previously had to be developed by our OEM customers as part of their own systems. We refer to these features and functions as our systems-level capabilities, which enable our OEM customers to reduce costs, accelerate time-to-market and enhance the flexibility of their systems.
We believe that our key competitive advantages include our system-level expertise, the programmability of our products, our ability to integrate complex analog hardware, digital hardware, algorithms, systems and software into a complete product, our distributed accelerator processor architecture and our technology leadership and experience working directly with service providers in mass deployment of this technology. Our products are not only being deployed by leading service providers around the world but also are being evaluated by other leading service providers.
Key Features of Our Technology
Integrated analog technology. One of the key technology differentiations of our semiconductors is our analog technology that is incorporated into our integrated analog products. The analog products perform the high-precision analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog conversion and the various analog functions necessary to interface between the digital signal processor and the physical transmission medium. Our integrated analog technology includes programmable transmit and receive filters, low-noise amplifiers, and a power-optimized line driver with synthesized impedance and hybrid cancellation. Our analog technology enables systems to increase performance, adapt to noisy signal conditions, reduce power consumption and be programmed for multiple international standards. Additionally, our analog technology eliminates the need for a large number of discrete components and hence reduces costs for our OEM customers and increases the number of connections, or ports, in OEM systems.
Highly programmable platform and software. We provide a highly programmable platform for the interactive broadband industry that enables significant customization of reach, transmission rates and other specifications to optimize transmission performance. Our software enables the programmability of our digital signal processor as well as provides an interface to an external processor for diagnostic testing and configuration of key functions. Our software can be remotely downloaded into our semiconductors for easy field upgrade and service expansion. This capability allows service providers to protect their investments and reduce costs. In addition, we provide application software that can be used by our OEM customers to facilitate the incorporation of our semiconductors into their systems.
High-performance digital signal processing and advanced algorithms. Communications algorithms are special techniques used to transform between digital data streams and specially conditioned analog signals suitable for transmission over copper lines. In order to reliably transmit and receive signals at high-speed transmission rates, it is critical to execute advanced algorithms in real time. Algorithm processing is typically performed by the digital signal processor. We have designed high-performance, low power usage digital signal processors for high transmission rate applications that utilize our proprietary software. Our processing algorithms enable reliable transmission and recovery of signals at high-speed transmission rates over the existing copper lines even under noisy signal conditions. We believe the combination of speed and programmability of our digital signal processor and our advanced algorithms provides us a competitive advantage.
Flexible network interfaces. Service providers globally use multiple communications protocols for transmitting data, voice and video over their networks. Such protocols include Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) and IP. Our semiconductors have the capability to support multiple network protocols and interfaces, including ATM and IP, to a variety of different OEM systems. For example, service providers in Japan and Korea typically deploy IP-based line cards and platforms that use our semiconductors while service providers in Europe and North America have historically deployed ATM-based systems and are in the process of migrating to IP-based systems.
High-performance network processing. The delivery of high-quality video and other services requires a high-performance processor to handle the digital data streams that travel in both the upstream and downstream directions from the subscriber’s home. Common data processing functions include routing of IP-based packets, providing voice, video and data streams with different classes of priority within the system and implementing VoIP, network security and wireless LAN functionality. Our products include high-performance semiconductors that are designed to perform functions at rates of up to 200 Mbps, which is equal to the rates of our VDSL2 PHY products and 1 gigabit per second (Gbps) on the LAN side. We believe the combination of our high-performance network processing products and our broad range of VDSL and ADSL2+ PHY products provides us a competitive advantage.
Key Benefits of Our Technology for Our Customers
Enabling the delivery of advanced digital media, video, communications and interactive broadband applications. Our products provide high-speed transmission rates of up to 100 Mbps downstream and upstream. These transmission rates enable service providers to deliver advanced digital media, video, communications and interactive broadband applications such as broadcast television, HDTV, IPTV, VOD, interactive television, peer-to-peer file sharing, sending and receiving advanced digital media, video conferencing, video surveillance, streaming audio and video, online gaming, game hosting and VoIP, as well as traditional telephony services.
Improving time-to-market with programmable systems-level products. Our products are programmable through our software, which enables our OEM customers to provide a single line card, instead of multiple line cards, to support multiple international standards. Our systems-level capabilities enable us to design our semiconductors to accelerate our OEM customers’ time-to-market. Because of the programmability of our products, service providers can deliver multiple service packages and charge different amounts for these packages.
Cost-effective, high-performance transmission over existing copper lines. Our semiconductors minimize service providers’ capital expenditures and costs, because they enable transmission of signals at high-speed transmission rates over their existing copper lines. As a result, service providers can leverage their previous investments in their access network infrastructure to deliver advanced revenue-generating services to their customers. Our products are compatible with service providers’ existing systems, enabling these service providers to add line cards without having to replace existing systems, thus lowering upfront capital expenditures and reducing inventory costs. Moreover, we offer semiconductors for ADSL2 and ADSL2+ broadband products, as well as VDSL broadband products, thereby providing our customers with a convenient single source from which to purchase a wide range of broadband access semiconductors.
End-to-end products. We offer semiconductors for both central office and customer premises equipment to deliver seamless interoperability.
Proven technology. To date, we have shipped products to enable over 20 million VDSL central office ports and over 10 million RGs. Our products are already deployed or in field testing at leading service providers worldwide such as Belgacom, Chunghwa Telecom, France Telecom, Hanaro-Telecom, Korea Telecom Corp., Nippon Telegraph And Telephone East Corp., Nippon Telegraph And Telephone West Corp., Softbank BB Corporation, and Swisscom. Our OEM customers and the service providers they serve conduct extensive system-level testing and field qualification of a new semiconductors generally over a six to eighteen month period to ensure that it meets performance, standards compliance and stability requirements before that semiconductor is approved for mass deployment. Our semiconductors have been designed into systems offered by leading OEMs including: Alcatel-Lucent, Dasan Networks, Inc., ECI Telecom Ltd., Innomedia, Inc., Millinet Co., Ltd., Motorola, Inc., NEC Corporation, Sagem Communications, Sumitomo Electronic Industries, Ltd., Thomson Telecom SPA, Ubiquoss ISP, Westell Technologies, Inc. and ZyXEL Communications, Inc.
Our Strategy
Our objective is to provide the leading semiconductor and software products for the universal delivery of new generations of broadband services that transform the way people work, live and play. We expect to continue to develop highly programmable semiconductors that deliver triple play and interactive services over broadband using telephone copper lines and that distribute these services in the digital home. In addition, we intend to further expand into new applications and adjacent markets. The principal elements of our strategy are:
Leverage our market and technology leadership positions. We believe we have achieved a leadership position in the high-speed broadband market as well as in the triple play RG markets. We have been a leader in the development of the standards for interactive broadband over copper lines and our products are compliant with those standards. Our products have been deployed by several leading service providers, which we believe provides us with an incumbent position with these service providers. We intend to leverage our incumbent position to accelerate the deployment of our products around the world.
Capitalize on our existing service provider and OEM relationships. Broadband technology requires customization for the specific needs of service providers. We intend to continue to capitalize on our close relationships with leading service providers and OEMs to accelerate the deployment of our products. We believe that our close relationships with service providers and OEMs provide us with a deep understanding of their needs and enable us to continue to develop customized technology to meet their requirements.
Continue to pursue acquisitions, strategic partnerships and joint ventures. We intend to continue to pursue acquisitions, strategic partnerships and joint ventures that we believe may allow us to increase market share in our current markets and expand into adjacent markets, broaden our technology and intellectual property and strengthen our relationships with service providers and OEMs. For example, in February 2006, we completed the NPA acquisition, which we believe enabled us to become a leading developer and provider of RG semiconductors. Also in 2008 we purchased certain DSL technology and assets from Centillium Communications, Inc.
Leverage our technology capabilities to pursue new market opportunities. We have developed expertise in technologies that are key to high-speed broadband, including analog and mixed-signal semiconductor design, digital signal processing, advanced-signal processing algorithms, firmware and software. We also have expertise in developing and designing high-performance network processing semiconductors and related software that enables us to integrate key residential gateway functions into a single chipset that consists of multiple semiconductors. We plan to further extend our technology expertise by devoting engineering resources to research and development in analog and mixed-signal, digital signal and network processing as well as by exploring potential technology acquisition opportunities. We intend to use our core technologies and establish partnerships to develop new complementary products that incorporate additional functionality to our current semiconductors to expand our addressable market.
Diversify our customer base. We have sales presence in Europe, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and the United States. We intend to utilize our sales team, technical support organization and third-party sales channels to broaden our customer reach on a global basis. We intend to diversify the geographic sources of our revenue through our work in those regions. In particular, we seek to expand relationships with service providers in countries such as Belgium, Canada, China, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, the United Kingdom and the United States.
Capitalize on our fabless operating model. We intend to continue to operate as a fabless semiconductor company by outsourcing all the manufacturing, assembling and testing of our semiconductors to reliable outsourcing partners. We also intend to continue working closely with our third-party outsourcing partners to achieve higher performance and lower cost for our semiconductors. We believe that our fabless operating model has enabled us to continue to focus on innovation, integration and the marketing and selling of our products. This enables us to maximize our opportunities, while minimizing our need for capital.
Our Target Markets and Products
We offer multiple product lines that are designed to address different segments of the high-speed broadband and RG semiconductor markets. Using equipment based on our programmable semiconductors, service providers deploy advanced digital media, video, communications and interactive broadband applications over their existing copper infrastructure. Service providers and OEMs choose our semiconductors from these multiple product lines based on a variety of factors such as the design of their networks, the distance between the fiber termination point and the customer premises, the technology that they want to deploy, the services that they want to offer and system design constraints such as performance, density and power consumption.
Our products are generally located at both ends of the copper line. DSLAMs and concentrators, which are located in the service provider infrastructure, use CO semiconductors while RGs and modems, which are located at the subscriber’s premises, use CPE semiconductors.
Central Office/Access Infrastructure Markets
Service provider networks generally connect to their customers through a combination of fiber and copper lines. The fiber termination point can be located in the service provider CO (Fiber to the Exchange), in a remote terminal in the field (Fiber to the Remote—FTTR or Fiber to the Node—FTTN), or inside or just outside a large building (Fiber to the Building—FTTB) and in a home (FTTH, in which case the in-home distribution may or may not be over copper lines). Such markets are collectively referred to as FTTx and the growth in these markets is fueled by service providers pushing their fiber capabilities deeper into their infrastructure and closer to the end user.
As service providers extend fiber closer to the customer, the length of the copper line shortens. With copper lines of 3,000 feet or shorter, service providers can provide high-speed transmission rates—similar to that of fiber —over existing copper lines. By providing high-speed transmission rates over existing copper lines, service providers enable the cost-effective provisioning of advanced digital media, video, communications and interactive broadband applications including broadcast television, HDTV, IPTV, VOD, interactive television, peer-to-peer file sharing, sending and receiving advanced digital media, video conferencing, video surveillance, streaming video and audio, online gaming, game hosting and VoIP, as well as traditional telephony services.
Our multi-mode CO access infrastructure products enable service providers to quickly offer triple play services. These products comply with a broad range of international standards, support both Ethernet and ATM connectivity and fully complement service providers’ fiber deployments by leveraging existing copper infrastructure. We believe that this product line offers the industry’s best performance with the lowest power consumption and the highest port density.
Central Office/Access Infrastructure Products
Fx™ Family
The Fx family of multi-mode (VDSL2, VDSL, ADSL2+, ADSL2, ADSL per port) products enable service providers to deliver a full suite of revenue-generating interactive broadband services and features from a single platform and offer up to 100/100 Mbps performance (100 Mbps downstream and 100 Mbps upstream). These products utilize our fifth generation technology and consist of an 8-port DSP engine, a 4-port Analog Front End (AFE), a 4-port Integrated Front End (IFE) and a 2-port line driver (LD). These chipsets are targeted for CO equipment (DSLAMs, ONTs and other broadband concentrators) and are compliant to all mandatory features of the VDSL2 (G.993.2) standard.
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Fx100100-5 chipsets are targeted for triple play, IPTV deployments from multi-dwelling unit and remote terminals that require up to 100 Mbps in the downstream and up to 100 Mbps in the upstream and up to 48-port line card density. The chipsets support all VDSL2 profiles and are optimized for 30 MHz of spectrum operation to offer 100/100 Mbps performance.
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Fx10050-5 chipsets are targeted for triple play, IPTV deployments from remote terminals and central offices that require up to 100 Mbps in the downstream and up to 50 Mbps in the upstream and up to 48-port line card density. The chipsets support all 8, 12 and 17 MHz profiles and are optimized for 17.6 MHz of spectrum operation to offer 100/50 Mbps performance.
Customer Premises Equipment/Residential Gateway Markets
Customers demand a wide array of services from their broadband providers. They want VoIP telephony, IPTV, wireless connectivity, Personal Video Recorder (PVR) services, security, file and photo sharing, gaming and a host of other advanced offerings. But service providers face a significant challenge delivering those offerings. Not only is there a greater need for bandwidth, but service providers also need to provide an end-user device that has the processing power to handle new services while managing their operating expenses.
We believe that the residential gateway is poised to become the centerpiece of the digital home. Whether the access infrastructure is copper, fiber or wireless, the residential gateway must have adequate bandwidth to distribute bandwidth intensive services with appropriate security and other functionality. As each service provider rolls out new offerings, they are moving to residential gateways from simple modems. As IPTV and other services grow, VDSL2 and PON infrastructure deployment have begun to pick up to meet increasing bandwidth requirements.
Our Fusiv® RG processors enable service providers to efficiently and cost-effectively deliver triple-play services to the residential, small office/home office and small to medium enterprise markets. These processors utilize Ikanos’ unique distributed architecture, which includes multiple accelerator processors (AP) that offload switching, routing and other tasks from the host central processing unit (CPU). As a result, we provide high-levels of processing power for combined advanced services including but not limited to VoIP, PVR, multi-mode DSL and security, while supporting best-in-class QoS and wire speed performance across all LAN and WAN interfaces.
Our products are primarily targeted at the residential gateway market, but may also be utilized in adjacent applications including but not limited to routers and security appliances for small and medium enterprises, analog telephone adapters and small IP-based private branch exchanges (PBXs).
Customer Premises Equipment/Residential Gateway Products
FxS™ Family
FxS chipsets are incorporated into equipment located at the customer premises, also referred to as Subscriber Located Equipment (SLE), or the Optical Network Terminal (ONT), and are integral to the delivery of interactive broadband services. FxS chipsets provide multi-mode VDSL PHY connectivity using existing copper lines at transmission rates of up to 100 Mbps downstream and upstream;
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Fx100100S-5: 100/100 VDSL (profile 8a,b,c,d/12a,b/17a/30a) and ADSL applications for equipment like DSLAMs and ONTs
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Fx10050S-5: 100/50 VDSL (profile 8a,b,c,d/12a,b/17a) and ADSL applications for equipment like DSLAMs and ONTs
Fusiv Vx Family
Fusiv products are incorporated in customer premises equipment including VoIP gateways, RBs, routers and IP-based PBXs. Fusiv processors employ a unique distributed architecture that incorporates AP engines for data path functions, ensuring that the host CPU processing power is available for customer applications.
The Fusiv Vx150 is a high-performance, cost-effective network processor for building customer premises equipment that enables bundled voice and data services, and provides high-speed switching, routing, packet filtering, and firewall functions. It provides integration of full chain voice processing, signaling and network protocol processing and rich peripheral interface support.
Ikanos’ Fusiv Vx155 processor delivers the processing power and capability to handle full voice chain, signaling and network protocol processing on a single chip. This makes it ideal for triple- and quadruple-play gateways. It supports a variety of WAN topologies including PON, DSL, WiMAX and Ethernet.
Ikanos’ Fusiv Vx160 integrated processor is ideal for ADSL2+ routers, ADSL2+ residential gateways and other customer premises equipment. It combines a high-performance RISC processor and ADSL2+/ADSL2/ADSL physical layer data pump into one compact package.
Ikanos’ Fusiv Vx170 processor was designed expressly for fiber-to-the-home deployments. The product is a system-on-chip, which integrates a control processor, DSP subsystem, security engine, and two GMII Gigabit Ethernet ports for broadband connectivity. Its MIPS™-based core and integrated QoS capabilities make it ideal for deployments of new services such as IPTV, VOD and online gaming.
The Fusiv Vx180 is an integrated gateway processor that provides a MIPS-based CPU core, VoIP capabilities, security, and best-in-class QoS. It includes a multi-mode VDSL2 data pump, which is backward compatible to ADSL2+, ADSL2 and ADSL for flexibility across a range of service provider deployments. The product easily integrates with home networking technologies such as 802.11a/b/g/n, MoCA™, HomePNA™ and HomePlug®. The Fusiv Vx180 offers two options for the analog IFE. The IFE-5 with a hybrid LD (two semiconductors) supports up to the 30a profile with 100/100 performance. The IFE-6, which has an integrated IFE and LD, supports up to the 17a profile and ADSL.
Ikanos’ Fusiv Vx200 processor integrates full chain voice processing, signaling and network protocol processing onto a single chip. A built-in security engine allows users to build IP-Sec enabled data and voice applications. The product also provides high-speed switching, routing, packet filtering and firewall functions.
Software
Software is a key component of Ikanos semiconductor products. In our CO and CPE chipsets, we have proprietary Rapid Rate Adaptation™ (RRA) software that enhances link robustness. Ikanos’ Programmable Operating System™ (iPOS) software facilitates the customization of Fx and FxS chipsets to specific applications. And our FusivWare™ software for our processors allows for increased flexibility and reuse in the design of modems, gateways and other devices expediting time-to market for our customers’ new generations of products.
Ikanos’ RRA is an automated, intelligent software allowing service providers to enhance link robustness, reliability and availability under severe and time-varying noise environments. RRA is an advanced technology that minimizes disconnections and subsequent retrains on the DSL link in the presence of sudden, large wideband noise changes.
Ikanos’ iPOS integrates a real-time operating system kernel and management Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) that enable equipment vendors to easily tailor Fx and FxS chipsets to specific applications. iPOS is highly configurable and controls the chipsets’ Burst Mode Engine™ (BME). It is based on the VxWorks operating system and can be ported to other operating systems and host processors.
Ikanos’ FusivWare is advanced Linux-based operating software that enables OEMs to jump start their development processes. The software incorporates routing, bridging, wireless LAN and other drivers, a complete VoIP stack, packet classification, marking, QoS, and bandwidth management to enable the rapid prototyping and production of simple modems to sophisticated gateways.