RE: 10GE router resource

> High-rate routers try to keep the packets in an SRAM
queue 
> and instead of looking up destinations in a DRAM-based
radix 
> tree, they use a special memory device called a TCAM.

FPGAs can be used to do both SRAM and TCAMs. All that is
needed
is an FPGA board with 10G or a 10G card with an FPGA on it.
Although NetFPGA and RiceNIC are both 1G devices, there is
a
certain commercial market for programmable high-speed
network cards
for things like Intrusion Detection and data-center/GRID
type
applications. 

Anyone seriously interested in this area should start
hunting amongst
the developers (and researchers) of embedded systems. You
might end
up working with a university student in the Czech Republic
to put his
TCAM/FPGA implementation onto a 10G card because the
Internet breaks
down the barriers that high-margin vendors have used to
create lock-in.
Bleeding edge networks may not be able to do this type of
deal
but then, they are only 1% or less of the network operators
out there.

--Michael Dillon

> FPGAs can be used to do both SRAM and TCAMs. All that
is needed
> is an FPGA board with 10G or a 10G card with an FPGA on
it.

The Xilinx Virtex family can already do 10G, if you
are into FPGA development (I seem to recall the
first Xilinx FPGA that could do 10G was 4-5 years
ago; forever in Moore's law).  Other vendors have
equivalent parts.  And the Xilinx family has an
available PowerPC core.  I seem to recall a couple
of vendors making available a (micro)Linux kernel
for running on same.  All the hardware you need
for building your own 10G router.  Just add
FPGA development resources, some planar board
design, and software.