New triple-FPGA devices from Metamako offer exceptional speed and performance

5 June 2017, New York, London & Sydney: Metamako, the leading specialist provider of high-performance networking platforms, has launched a new series of networking devices capable of supporting up to 3 powerful FPGAs on a single 1RU or 2RU device. These are the most powerful FPGA-based platforms in their class, designed for enormous processing power and speed.

Metamako’s new offering is capable of running multiple performance-sensitive applications on a single device. For example, while one FPGA may be streaming data in real-time to capture all the data flowing through the network, a second FPGA might be running a real-time security application looking for anomalies in the traffic. At the same time, the third might be performing a related data analytics or machine learning application. Alternatively, all three FPGAs can be programmed to operate in concert, bringing the combined power to bear on a single task.

Metamako’s new range of devices leverages the latest FPGAs from Xilinx, the Kintex® UltraScale™ and the Virtex® UltraScale+™. Clients deploying the triple FPGA solution will benefit from near-zero latency links between each FPGA, and will see significantly reduced latency, compared with FPGAs connected via serial links.

Dr. Dave Snowdon, CTO of Metamako, says: “Having a triple FPGA configuration means a huge amount of power, and the ability to run several applications in parallel, very quickly. Traditionally our devices have been used in the financial markets for their ultra-low latency and very high degree of determinism, but they can now be used across many other industries, such as medical imaging, software defined radio, industrial control and telecommunications, to name but a few. These cutting-edge FPGA devices give application developers the ability to avoid off-chip RAM, providing a leap in the performance of their FPGA-based applications.”

Kevin Covington, CEO of Metamako, says: “Metamako launched its first device in 2013, and we now have an established global presence and an excellent track record in the financial markets, arguably one of the most demanding environments. With the launch of the triple FPGA we feel that we have a huge amount to offer to other verticals, as it marks our move into a significantly more powerful and faster FPGA-enabled networking and applications platforms.”

Metamako’s ground-breaking approach provides a sophisticated network solution, which is much simpler and considerably more convenient to implement compared to the traditional approach of using FPGAs embedded on PCI Express cards, thanks to having multiple components embedded in a single device.

All Metamako devices come with an extensive range of features, such as data fan-out, scalable broadcast, connection monitoring, patching, tapping, time-stamping and deterministic port-to-FPGA latency of just 3 nanoseconds, which can be leveraged, including between the FPGAs.

Metamako’s latest offering comes with a developer’s kit, which includes information and example designs for in-house application development on the new devices.

Key features:

Simplified Stack – one device houses the FPGA(s), x86 server and Layer 1 switch, ensuring that all hardware components work in sync, significantly reducing development time and errors.
Integrated with existing FPGA Tools – platform-specific adapters for programming the FPGA are embedded in the Metamako device, allowing for quick and easy (remote) access to the device by the FPGA development tools.
Layer 1+ Crosspoint Functionality – includes all core Metamako Layer 1 functionality such as market scalable broadcast, connection monitoring, remote patching, tapping, timestamping and deterministic port-to-FPGA latency of just 3 nanoseconds.
SFP Agnostic – the Layer 1+ switch functionality in Metamako is agnostic, which saves FPGA developers time and effort in having to interface with lots of different types of SFPs.
Feature Rich – enterprise features, such as access control, syslog, SNMP, packet stats, tcpdump, JSON RPC API, time series data, streaming telemetry and more, are included as standard, avoiding the need to build these features in-house and reducing time-to-market.
Easy App Deployment – Metamako’s platform includes a built-in application infrastructure which allows developers to wrap applications into simple packages for deployment, streamlining operational processes.

Metamako is a leading provider of high-performance, low-latency network solutions. Its network platform of disruptive hardware, FPGA-enabled devices and applications is built for high-speed, superior performance and programmability to provide clients with the ability to simplify their network stack and support computing at the edge. Its super-fast devices with a latency of just 4 nanoseconds have been independently tested by the STAC Benchmark Council.

Metamako’s solutions have built-in intelligence and are rich in features, using state-of-the-art technology to keep latency to an absolute minimum.

Metamako, founded in 2013, is based in Sydney, Australia, with offices in New York, London and Tokyo.

For more information visit www.metamako.com