ASICs at the Edge

This text discusses the role of ASICs (Application Specific Integrated Circuits) in network equipment, specifically at Cloudflare. It explains that unlike CPUs or GPUs, ASICs are built with a single function in mind and provides examples such as Google Tensor Processing Units used for machine learning functions. The text highlights the benefits of using ASICs, including their hyper-efficiency, reduced cooling and power requirements, and easier production process. However, it also notes that once a new technology or specification comes around, any chips made without that technology baked in won't be able to support it. The text then delves into the development lifecycle of an ASIC, which starts with prototyping in an FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) and moves on to baking the new packet processing pipeline into the chip at a foundry. It also mentions that there are only a few hardware companies that will buy ASICs in bulk to build equipment with, leading to increased unit costs. The text further explains what ASICs do in network equipment, including switching and routing of packets, as well as being the first layer of defense (in the form of a stateless firewall). It also discusses how ASICs use TCAM (Ternary Content-Addressable Memory) to store forwarding tables, ACL (Access Control List) tables, or CoS (Class of Service) tables. The text concludes by exploring the vendor landscape for network hardware and provides an overview of some major players in this field, including Broadcom, Intel, Mellanox, Juniper, and Cisco. It briefly discusses their respective products and how they are used at Cloudflare.