Intel Crystal Forest Takes Aim at the Networking Market

Intel is well known for its server and consumer PC chips. Intel is also in the networking business too and is currently developing a new network communications processor that will help to deliver more performance to networking gear.
The new platform is codenamed Crystal Forest and will provide as much as 160 million packets per second of forwarding capacity. Currently, many networking vendors use application-specific integrated circuits (ASIC) in their gear, but Crystal Forest is actually is a bit different.
"Crystal Forest is a combination of a standard Intel CPU and a companion chip, which are both built within Intel’s standard 32nm (nanometer) process," Stephen Price, director of Marketing at Intel’s Communications Infrastructure Division, told