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Altera continues to assist Communications Service Providers in using NFVi to innovate while addressing total cost of ownership (TCO) and scaling challenges.

Altera and its partners collaborate with customers to ensure targeted hardware, IP, and solutions for the deployment of virtual network functions (VNFs), cloud-native functions (CNFs), virtual Broadband Network Gateways (vBNG), and virtual Evolved Packet Core (vEPC).

Whether it is data in transit or during processing, security throughout the communications spectrum has become a baseline requirement, provisioned through industry-standard network security protocols such as MACsec and IPsec/TLS/DTLS.

Altera offers MACsec soft-IP with a baseline feature set that is typically relevant to most end-user applications. Additionally, Altera FPGAs can support Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) and IPSec/DTLS/TLS protocols in the datapath.

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See FPGA IP for Network Security 

Altera FPGAs can implement Gateway functions by providing flexible and reconfigurable hardware acceleration for various network functions. They support high-speed data processing and can be tailored to specific protocol requirements, making them ideal for handling diverse and evolving network traffic. 

FPGA-based Gateway functions benefit from hard-IP protocol support such as Ethernet and PCIe, enabling seamless integration with existing network infrastructure, plus high channel-rate transceivers with capabilities up to 116 Gbps for efficient data transmission.

Altera FPGAs implement routing and switching applications by leveraging hard-IP protocols like Ethernet and PCIe, essential for high-speed data transfer and communication. Integrated hard crypto blocks in selected Agilex® variants save fabric space and power, suiting secure data transmission in routing/switching infrastructure.

Altera FPGAs support advanced memory technologies such as HBM2E, DDR4, DDR5, LPDDR4, and LPDDR5 — critical for handling large data volumes and ensuring fast access times for data buffering or search functions (like [LP14.1]ACL / LPM via Altera-provided IP). The large fabric supports high-frequency designs to meet the demanding performance requirements of modern networking.

The Optical Transport Network (OTN) protocol from the ITU-T is the universal protocol for combining and transmitting multiple different communication signals over a common optical signal, for transmission over Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) networks, and for interoperation between optical networks of different operators. OTN offers extensive OAM features, very stable latency, and fast protection.

Beyond 100G OTN (B100G OTN) allows transmission up to 800 Gbps, with further extensions in progress. The Flexible OTN extension (FlexO) allows B100G OTN to take advantage of optical modules designed for Ethernet while running at OTN data rates a few percentage points higher than Ethernet.

The (re)programmability of the FPGA is a perfect match for the flexibility of OTN. Partial reconfiguration allows shifting between protocols on some interfaces without interrupting traffic on others; the FPGA can dynamically change rate and NRZ/PAM4 modulation, and can be remotely updated in-field for new services, features, or standard extensions. It can also be used to build universal hardware boards usable for different networking use cases depending on programming — de-risking and future-proofing investments and letting system vendors differentiate.

Altera offers a very wide range of FPGAs for 10 Gbps to multi-Tbps OTN solutions which can operate at high core frequencies even at high utilization rates and thereby create very efficient solutions both in terms of size and development effort. Along with that Altera offers a very large library of ready-made and field-proven IP cores and can facilitate complete OTN solutions (virtual ASSPs) based on customer specifications. 

The Flex Ethernet protocol (FlexE) aggregates multiple Ethernet flows on a single optical interface with an option to adjust the capacities of individual MAC flows up and down. Individual flows are kept entirely isolated so the performance of one flow can in no way affect the quality of another. FlexE is standardized in the Optical Interconnect Forum (OIF); ITU-T has defined the Metro Transport Network protocol (MTN) which builds on FlexE.

FPGAs can augment a packet switch/router system or implement the uplink of an edge system with FlexE and can turn a single-channel Ethernet connection into a flexible multichannel solution. Altera FPGAs offer the foundational functions for FlexE — flexible transceivers, FEC, and Ethernet PCS — plus a FlexE IP core and an Ethernet Multi-MAC IP core supporting multiple parallel MAC functions with adjustable capacity that can interwork directly with the FlexE front-end. Altera FPGAs make it easy to combine FlexE with OTN protocols.

Private Line Emulation (PLE) enables bit-level transparent transport of OTN as well as other service protocols with IP routers — without the need for dedicated OTN systems and networks. PLE is being standardized within the IETF and specifies a method for encapsulating high-speed bit-streams as Virtual Private Wire Service (VPWS) over Packet Switched Networks (PSN).

PLE breaks the client bit-stream (e.g. OTN) into equal-sized packets encapsulated into Ethernet/MPLS packets, transported through IP networks over MPLS label-switched paths or Ethernet pseudo-wires. At the far end, the PLE function evens out latency variations and re-establishes the original bit-stream including its inherent clock.

The Altera FPGA is a perfect technology for PLE — it allows ongoing adaptation to an evolving standard and tailoring to customers' existing systems. Based on Altera FPGAs and IP cores, customers can combine PLE with OTN, Ethernet, IP/MPLS, and PTP/SyncE to create systems that interwork directly with existing networks.

Altera FPGAs can be used to implement OLT solutions by leveraging the burst mode capabilities of the transceivers, the DDR5 / LPDDR5 memory interfaces, built-in Ethernet MACs for uplink connections, and the core logic to build optimized, differentiated, and future-proof PON MAC solutions. Ready-made PON-MAC IP cores are available through Altera partners.

The fundamental PON functions may be complemented with functions like integrated Ethernet switch/router functions, search functions like Access Control Lists (ACL) / Longest Prefix Match (LPM), Deep Packet Inspection (DPI), or AI inference.