Low power option for networking applications

According to Freescale, the new processor combines control, datapath and application layer processing, which lowers part counts, reduces system cost and shrinks product footprints. It is suitable for wireless infrastructure, enterprise routing and switching and industrial applications. Brett Butler, vice president and general manager of Freescale's Networking Processor Products Division said: "Market adoption for the QorIQ P4080 processor has been outstanding, and Freescale is now expanding the scalability of its QorIQ P4 platform via the new quad-core P4040 offering. The P4040's exceptional performance and power profiles, together with the availability of an impressive range of enablement solutions makes the new device a compelling option for networking and communications equipment markets." The P4040 is manufactured using 45nm process technology and features dual memory controllers and the same caching, interconnect acceleration and I/O technologies as the P4080 processor. The device integrates four e500mc cores based on Power Architecture technology, delivering frequencies of 1.5GHz per core. Each core has a dedicated 128KB L2 backside cache and access to 2MB of shared frontside L3 cache. Full processor independence, including the ability to boot and reset each individual e500mc core, is a defining characteristic of the P4040 device. In addition, the P4040 boasts dual memory controllers that support DDR2 or DDR3 memories allowing board designers to utilise the latest memory technologies. The QorIQ P4040 device is scheduled to begin sampling in Q4 2009 and production is planned for 2H 2010.