On the grand occasion of the World Mobile Communication Congress (MWC) in 2019, Intel launched the Intel FPGA programmable acceleration card N3000 (Intel FPGA PAC N3000). This product is specially designed for service providers to provide strong support for 5G next generation core and virtualized wireless access network solutions. Intel < FPGA PAC N3000 can speed up a variety of virtualization workloads, including 5G wireless access network and 5G core network applications.

"With the rapid growth of Internet protocol traffic and 5G deployment in the mobile and telecommunication industries, we have launched Intel FPGA PAC N3000 to provide excellent programmability and flexibility, as well as excellent performance, energy efficiency, density and system integration functions to help the market fully support the functions of 5G network." Reynette Au, vice president of marketing for Intel Programmable Solutions, said.

Telecom service providers are facing a rapidly growing demand for use. Global Internet Protocol (IP) traffic is expected to triple in the next five years. The exponential growth of mobile users, Internet of Things devices and 5G use cases will greatly increase the complexity and cost of network construction and operation. Many new use cases require low latency and high bandwidth, which can bring new revenue sources to service providers while reducing overall cost of ownership.

Ron Parker, chief architect of Affirmed Networks, said: "5G is a revolutionary technology that requires advanced network virtualization infrastructure and flexible software architecture. By using Intel < FPGA PAC N3000, we have developed a cloud native container solution for 5G core and EPC, which is the first real 100G/CPU slot solution. The acceleration of FPGA can help us deal with the traffic load quickly, and only need 50% of the original CPU occupancy, thus providing huge scalable space. Intel < FPGA can optimize software performance, reduce power consumption and delay, and exhibit diversified quality of service characteristics in multiple 5G network modules.

Functions: Intel < FPGA PAC N3000 is a highly customizable platform that supports high throughput, low latency and high bandwidth applications. It can optimize data plane performance to reduce costs while maintaining high flexibility. In addition, it supports end-to-end industry standards and open source tools to help users easily adapt to changing workloads and standards.

Principle: Network-oriented Intel < FPGA PAC N3000 aims to accelerate network traffic, achieve up to 100 Gbps speed, and support up to 9 GB DDR4 and 144 MB QDR IV memory to meet the needs of high-performance applications. With excellent programmability and flexibility, FPGA supports customers to use reference IP for network functions such as vRAN, vBNG, vEPC, IPSec and VPP to accelerate load, thus creating customized solutions.

Advantages: Intel < FPGA PAC N3000 is a fully functional end-to-end solution that can be deployed on 5G edges and networks. It will have far-reaching effects:

5G Core Solution: Affirmed Networks* has launched a 5G-oriented virtualization, cloud native mobile network solution. By using Intel < FPGA PAC, the company has developed a new solution for 5G core network (CN)/ evolving packet core, which is the first to implement a real 200 Gbps/server. Intel < FPGA realizes intelligent load balancing and CPU cache optimization, which can significantly enhance software performance. The product can also help reduce power consumption and latency, showing a variety of quality of service features in multiple 5G network modules. Affirmed Networks 5G Core Network Solution will be showcased at the Intel Exhibition of the World Mobile Communications Congress.

Edge: Letian Corporation* is a leading global innovation company in e-commerce, communications and financial technology. It will operate innovative mobile networks in Japan, including Intel x86 architecture processor and FPGA-based PAC (for accelerating from core to edge, thus providing the first end-to-end cloud native mobile network). Intel FPGA PAC N3000 plays the role of distributed unit accelerator with Intel to strong scalable processors. Layer 1 functionality (such as forward error correction and forward transmission) will be uninstalled from the processor to Intel < FPGA. Intel < FPGA can not only improve processing efficiency, thus supporting larger user capacity, but also reduce system costs and enhance the security of wireless networks.