Engineering of Embedded Linux ATM for MPC8260 and Derivatives

Network processors provide enormous potential for differentiated high-end integrated networking and communications systems. The PPC PowerQUICC architecture has made this processor family a basic element for networking and communications systems. Its impressive market share has made this processor family the undisputed leader in the communications processor market. On the other hand, Linux is particularly popular in network embedded systems because of its proven networking capabilities and well suiting for networking applications and services that require high reliability and high availability, and the flexibility it offers to specifically tailor it for a special hardware configuration. Furthermore, ATM is very popular in WAN backbone and access networks, especially because of the large investments made by Telcos and ISPs and the inherent support of scalable bandwidths and guaranteed QoS, which facilitates new classes of multimedia services. This paper discusses for the first time the engineering of Linux ATM on the MPC8260 communications processor and derivative CPUs and presents embedded HTTP and SNMP system management interfaces for ATM configuration and monitoring. This work is important to the embedded networking community for the development of ATM access devices for high-end communication and networking systems.