We first profiled Solidum in September 1998 and have decided to revisit the company because it has wisely expanded its mission from an IP company to a fabless semiconductor company. Feliks Welfeld and Misha Nossik founded Solidum in December 1996 to develop algorithms, software and hardware for wire-speed packet processing. The founders previously worked at Skystone, an IP over SONET startup which was acquired by Cisco for an astonishing sum. Solidum raised $450K in June '98 from private investors and secured Cdn $2.5 million in first-round financing from Skypoint Capital, Lawrence & Co., private investors and Solidum employee participation in April '99. Second round financing of about US$15 million is planned for the 2nd half of 1999. The company currently has about 19 employees.

Traditional packet processing hardware is based on a dumb network interface and a CPU, ASIC, or network processor for processing/classification. According to Solidum, this architecture places high bandwidth demands on the system, requires expensive high-performance processors or inflexible ASICs, and degrades performance with policy complexity.

Solidum makes wire speed per port or multiport packet processing products from 100Mbps to 2.4Gbps with unlimited processing capability (any protocol including layer 7 and any data including the entirety of the payload) at very low cost. Solidum's solution integrates wire-speed packet classification into the network interface, which requires minimal CPU interaction and reduces bandwidth requirements. The PAX.core programmable packet classification processor processes bits from the MII or Utopia interface (at the PHY or MAC level). Policies are loaded into PAX memory from the host processor. The PAX.core then generates classification tags on the fly based on the policies in PAX memory. The classification results are available to the host via the PCI bus. Each port can execute independent policies. The PAX Packet Description Language enables new policies to de defined quickly.

Several products are available now including the PAX.ware 100 10/100 NIC with classification, PAX.core 100 fast Ethernet ASIC core, and PAX.works 2.0 product development system. Solidum is still licensing cores including the PAX.core 100. Products in development include the PAX.port 1000 Gigabit MF classifier chip, PAX.port 800 Octal Fast Ethernet MF classifier chip, and PAX.works 3.0, Solidum's next-generation development system. Chip schedules will be firmed up in the June/July timeframe. PAX.works 3.0 is scheduled for Sept '99. According to Solidum, packet classification is the most demanding task related to packet processing. Packet modification is considered much simpler and has been given a lower priority, although future chips may incorporate modification capabilities.

Solidium has also developed the PAX Packet Description Language (PAX PDL), a higher level approach to defining packet processing that creates efficiencies by focusing on what needs to be done not how. PAX hardware is claimed to be easy to program with the PDL compiler. It can run at very high speed with relatively low cost components while executing policies of virtually unlimited complexity. Policies can be dynamic as required by stateful inspection of packets, access control lists enforcement, routing table updates, etc. Solidum has submitted the PAX PDL to the IETF standards group for consideration as the basis for industry-wide deployment. Naturally, Solidum has patented the most cost-efficient approach, a technique based on programmable state machine technology, to implementing PAX. The PAX.works 2.0 product development system consisting of the Language, Compiler and API for PAX PDL is available now.

Solidum and Lara Technology have formed an agreement to jointly develop processing solutions that help manufacturers of multi-gigabit networking equipment bring products to market faster with reduced effort. The companies will jointly offer solutions to be used in VoIP, policy-based network management, VPNs, security and QoS. PAX.core licensing discussions with Lara are underway.

Target customers include niche and major data communication companies and semiconductor companies. Packet processing can enable features such as QoS, layer 3 and 4 switching, and stateful inspection (the ability to base decisions on state information derived from past communications and other applications). The technology enables "smart" network interface cards by enabling the communications system to load policies expressed in SOLIDUM PDL into the NIC for packet verification, classification, and modification. Systems companies can add value by concentrating on their core expertise in constructing the policies for their firewall, layer 3 and 4 switch, router, traffic shaper, RMON probe, H.323 gateway or any other policy-based networking device.

Competitors include Agere, C-Port, MMC, Netboost, SiTera, Layer 5, Chameleon and others. Packet classification is the central element in QoS architectures such as DiffServ and IntServ. Solidium believes that its focus on the classification problem has led it to develop an optimal solution that is faster and less expensive than competing offerings. Packet verification and modification features will be incorporated in future offeringsas well. Solidum has not selected a wafer foundry yet. A sales force will be established in Q4.

Feliks Welfeld, president & CTO

Misha Nossik, CEO

Yoram Lapid, (VP Engineering formerly with Cadence, Tadiran and the Israeli Navy)

Charlie Jenkins, VP Marketing & Sales (formerly held high-level positions at NEC, GEC Plessey, IBM, Coherent Medical Systems, and Prolog)

Peter Rose, VP Finance & CFO (VP, Finance & CFO for Accelerix and Milkyway Networks)

Michael Richardson, chief software designer, API project leader

Courtenay Johnson, chief hardware designer, U-NIC project leader