As network traffic grows exponentially, data compression becomes increasingly important to maximize utilization of constrained channel bandwidth. The Helion Compression System IP core is designed with this in mind, and is ideal for use in Microwave Backhaul applications, Broadband Wireless Access for 802.16e (WiMAX), and potentially other Multi-Link Multi-In Multi-Out (MIMO) applications. The IP core uses a very robust and mature implementation of the LZRW lossless compression algorithm. The core is seamlessly scalable from 500Mbps to over 3Gbps in ECP3, and may be used in typical networking applications at either Layer 2 or Layer 3.
It is designed for easy in-line operation with network packets, yet is protocol agnostic. A generic but flexible header pass-thru allows different protocol and encapsulation scenarios. The final re-encapsulation decision is left to the user, either by changing existing protocol type fields or setting flags in proprietary link-layer headers.
The system contains all the logic needed to queue and allocate packets fairly across multiple engines, and to ensure the original order is preserved at the output. Latency is broadly equivalent to the store and forward time, since the whole packet must be seen to make a decision whether compression has succeeded or not.