Scaling the NetFPGA switch using Aurora over SATA

NetFPGA is a powerful platform for building high performance networking systems. The reconfigurable nature of the Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) makes it more suitable for certain network applications. The current NetFPGA platform supports four Ethernet ports and it can be configured as a four-port Ethernet router or switch. In this paper, we describe the implementation of an 8-port Ethernet switch using two NetFPGA boards which are interconnected by SATA cables. We use the Xilinx Aurora protocol for the serial data flow through the SATA cables. We also introduce an interconnection method using SATA for scaling the NetFPGA switch. We also demonstrate the effectiveness of the 8-port NetFPGA switch using throughput and packet loss measurements under different traffic conditions. General Terms Switch, NetFPGA, SATA, Aurora