A Merchant Switch Fabric (MSF) is an ASSP that can be used to distribute and/ or direct any type of traffic from one port to any other port. Since it can handle any type of traffic, this makes it different than the GigE Switch Chips (GESCs) that have become so popular over the last few years. While GESCs can be used in GigE switches, once you add the myriad of other types of traffic the carriers need to handle, the plan goes right out the window. For the last decade or so, just about every major Network Equipment Provider (NEP) had been making its own internal fabric. Now, thanks to reduced R&D budgets, better SerDes technology and the very flexible AdvancedTCA platform, we expect to see MSFs finally come into their own. While they won’t spread to as many markets as once hoped, they will still grab over a million ports by 2008 and climb nicely in revenues over the next several years, from $47 million in 2003.
This report includes forecasts by market segment of:
- TAM for ASIC and Merchant switch fabrics
- Standardized Backplane Interconnects (SBIs)
- SAM for just the MSFs
- Revenues for MSFs
Plus projections of:
- Average Sales Price (ASP) per port for MSFs
- TAM for ASIC and Merchant switch fabrics by fabric capacity
A detailed technical overview (including a special section on the AdvancedTCA), market overview, vendor profiles, and a market share analysis of the 2003 MSF revenues is also included.
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