The 3GPP 5G specifications have been evolving in stages into the new CUPS (control and user plane separation) architecture, which is fundamental for 5G, and one of its primary components is the User Plane Function (UPF). Ethernity’s 5G UPF Acceleration solution uses its patented ENET Flow Processor technology and standard DPDK APIs to offload the data plane to FPGA and thereby accelerate the UPF and the entire 5G network.
Ethernity’s FPGA-based ACE-NIC SmartNIC easily integrates with third-party UPF software networking elements from any vendor to fully offload the user plane data, releasing CPU cores, enhancing scalability, assuring deterministic performance, and providing future-ready programmability.
Ethernity’s 5G UPF Acceleration solution assures carrier-grade UPF performance at an extremely competitive price. The solution supports the disaggregation approach by enabling the UPF to be placed at the network edge closer to end user locations, thereby achieving better performance, reducing networking overhead, and lowering costs. The solution’s small footprint and low power requirements are also optimal for network edge deployment.
The solution supports 5G Quality of Experience (QoE), including high bandwidth, low latency, dense connectivity, and multitenancy. It enables an easily programmable data path that can quickly adapt to a service provider’s unique requirements and evolve with the ever-changing architectural requirements of the mobile market.
The ENET data path also supports network slicing with extensive multitenant control and with service partitioning and isolation features.
The solution can be implemented via an Ethernity ACE-NIC for accelerating 5G UPF as a VNF (virtual network functions). ACE-NICs can also accelerate the network function virtualization infrastructure (NFVI) based on DPDK. The solution is also available for implementation via an Ethernity ENET L3 Flow Processor for standard devices.
- AMF – Access and Mobility Management Function
- SMF – Session Management Function
- UPF – User Plane Function
