AppliedMicro's APM86491 System-on-a-Chip (SoC) (Photo: Business Wire)

Applied Micro Circuits Corporation (NASDAQ:AMCC), or AppliedMicro, today announced a high-performance System-on-a-Chip (SoC) featuring a 1.2GHz PowerPC® 465 processing core for advanced Network Attached Storage (NAS), Wireless Access Point (WAP) and media gateway systems for the connected home market. The APM86491 offers twice the performance of competing devices, reduced bill-of-materials (BOM) cost and energy-efficient power consumption as low as 2.5W to bring enterprise-class performance to consumer systems.

AppliedMicro’s APM86491 sets precedence in the industry with the first embedded processor offering two USB 3.0 ports, two PCI Express® Gen 2 ports, up to two SATA-II ports and two 10/100/1000 Ethernet ports on a single device. By providing line-rate throughput simultaneously on all high-speed interfaces, the APM86491 delivers the industry’s best throughput and performance. It also supports next-generation 802.11ac and advanced 802.11n WLAN compatibility and offers an unprecedented reduction in end system cost. With a rich array of leading edge peripherals, the APM86491 sets new levels of fully leveraged network entertainment and communication. Home appliances equipped with the APM86491 will be able to stream high definition video (1080i/1080p) of feature-length movies or clips while simultaneously enabling other Web2.0 applications to be accessed across a wide variety of connected home applications including NAS content.

AppliedMicro is also the first to offer a hardware-based Queue Manager with Traffic Manager (QM/TM). The QM/TM implements QoS to enable a richer video experience while unaffecting voice and web traffic. Catalina also implements inline packet acceleration technologies such as statefull TCP offload, hardware NAT and security features. These offloads enable applications such as firewalls, next-generation wireless access points and other connected home appliances such as NAS platforms. Performance is also increased by the Power Architecture® 465 CPU featuring a dual issue, out-of-order processor core. The tangible benefit to end-users is uninterrupted performance with no stalls during data transfers. Bandwidth multiplexing coupled with speed and coverage range of wireless connectivity are improved as on-the-go sharing through smartphones, tablets, laptops and HD displays become more and more pervasive. The SoC can operate at 2.5W to meet energy-efficiency requirements and eliminate the need for system cooling fans and heat sinks for reduced BOM.