Rambus rolls out 800 gigabit MACsec solution

Rambus, a silicon IP and chip provider, has announced its media access control security solution called 800G MACsec. The solution is designed to support next-generation networking infrastructure through hardware-based, point-to-point security for 800 gigabit ethernet links.

The Rambus 800G MACsec-IP-163/164 solution comprises a classifier and transform engine for deployment of the MACsec Layer 2 secure communication protocol. Implemented in hardware, this Rambus solution can deliver full line-rate MACsec security from 100G to 800G supporting 800 GbE and 800GBASE-R.

Driven by the continued exponential growth in data traffic, 800 GbE is expected to be broadly deployed across hyperscale data centers, enterprises and carrier networks as well as in network-attached high-performance computing (HPC) and artificial intelligence (AI) / machine learning (ML), the company states.

The company points to a growing demand for low-latency applications that can support real time applications like artificial intelligence and machine learning inference – and there is also a growing number of security threats such as denial of service, passive eavesdropping, and masquerading attacks.

The company designed MACsec to protect data in motion and provide a hardware engine that delivers security with no degradation of data transmission speeds.

"Our world has changed dramatically in just a few months, with a global shift to our homes being the center of work, schooling and entertainment. This has put enormous strain on the global data infrastructure," comments Rambus Security vice president and general manager Neeraj Paliwal.

"The evolution to 800 GbE will be a key enabler on the path forward. Our 800G MACsec protocol engine leverages a scalable architecture that supports configurations of one to many ports with an aggregate bandwidth of up to 800 Gbps. This flexibility provides the benefit of limiting the silicon cost for security, while safeguarding required data communications.

Rambus states that its line of MACsec IP solutions span multiple generations of the MACsec standard. To speed the design process, the MACsec engine is delivered with a driver development kit (DDK). For customers building system-level solutions, Rambus offers a MACsec Toolkit that implements the Port-based Network Access Control (PNAC) standard and facilitates development and testing of MACsec-compliant processing.

The Rambus 800G MacSEC solution includes:

• Full line-rate MACsec security from 100G to 800G with any packet and transform mix
• Multi-rate, multi-channel support with flexible bandwidth allocation
• Complies with the IEEE 802.1ae MACsec standard and its successors
• Additional classification and transformation options to support advanced use-cases and deployments
• Supplied with widely-adopted driver development kit (DDK)
• Supports secure data communications across data center, enterprise, carrier networks, network-attached HPC and AI/ML