Fulcrum to Demonstrate Low Latency of New FocalPoint Chip with Spirent TestCenter: Fulcrum Microsystems and Spirent Communications announced a joint test demonstration at SC07, which will highlight the ultra-low-latency resolution of Spirent TestCenter and the low-latency switching of Fulcrum’s new FocalPoint FM4000 router chip family. The demonstration will take place in Fulcrum’s booth #2161 at the SC07 SuperComputing Conference tradeshow in Reno, NV, Nov. 13 -15. It features a 24-port 10-Gigabit Ethernet Spirent TestCenter system – valued at more than $1 million – working with an FM4000-based evaluation platform. Fulcrum’s FocalPoint FM4000 family of layer 3/4 router chips features layer-3 latency of 300 nanoseconds, the industry’s lowest, in an integrated 24-port format, making it the only silicon on the market to combine the low latency and port density for high performance computing and clustered storage applications. Spirent TestCenter is a network performance analysis system with the hardware and software feature set necessary to test the latency of Fulcrum’s chip under normal and extreme (high stress and load conditions) circumstances in order to verify the performance of the Fulcrum FM4000 router chip. The Spirent TestCenter platform tests Ethernet switches capable of up to 10-Gigabit Ethernet connections. The test system is built on a technology that allows it to test wire-speed 10Gb/s performance and provide accurate latency measurements with 10 nanoseconds of resolution, compared to competitive solutions that offer less resolution and that require post test result manipulation to remove measurement errors from their test systems. “One of the challenges in developing FocalPoint was proving our latency claims to our customers, especially under fully loaded situations,” said Dan Daly, manager, verification for Fulcrum Microsystems. “Spirent TestCenter gives us the resolution and accuracy we need to prove without a doubt that our technology can take InfiniBand head-on in latency and compete in the datacenter.” “More and more, Ethernet is becoming the interface of choice for high performance computing applications in which density and scalability are imperative,” said Charles Seifert, senior product manager, 10-Gigabit Ethernet for Spirent Communications. “The Spirent TestCenter test system was able to successfully verify Fulcrum’s breakthrough capabilities that give network administrators a high-performance option in the data center that leverages the ubiquitous Ethernet standards.”