Analyzing A NAS: PLX Delivers Differentiation Via Evolution

The Prying Eyes writeup in today’s issue of EDN showcases PLX Technology’s OXE810SE single-drive SoC (and also mentions the dual-drive OXE810DSE sibling), the second generation of highly integrated NAS processors that the company obtained when it acquired Oxford Semiconductor a bit over a year ago. Time marches on, of course, and so do semiconductor companies’ product lines. As such, the company recently announced its third generation of NAS-focused devices and the first developed under the PLX umbrella.

All three products, the NAS 7820, 7821 and 7825, embed dual ARM 11 microprocessor cores running at 750 MHz, a companion network processor, and various application-specific hardware engines and software acceleration modules. Single- and dual-port RGMII (Reduced Gigabit Media Independent Interface) support enables integrated router and gateway functionality, and two of the three family members embed dual SATA transceivers for RAID capabilities. Other differentiators include PCI Express v1.0 ports (two on the high-end 7825, one on the other two products), while all three devices provide dual USB 2.0 transceivers. Similarly, they all offer UART, SPI, I²C and JTAG interface capabilities, while the 7825 is further augmented with SP/DIF and TDM/PCM interface features (perhaps obviously targeting applications such as DVRs and set-top boxes). Here’s a product comparison table:

The devices’ GbE MAC includes a bandwidth-boosting TCP/IP offload engine. Integrated SRAM holds frequently used data. And speaking of memory, on-board non-volatile semconductor storage is not required, since PLX’s processors can directly boot from the system’s disk drive(s). The devices and their companion development kits will enter general sampling this quarter; full production will follow in Q2. The NAS 7825 costs $15 in ‘volume’, with the NAS 7821 and NAS 7820 respectively at $13 and $11. All three devices come in a 17×17 mm 256-bump FBGA package.