Future router-on-chip CPUs

[nelfilcon]

There were consumer switch+CPU combinations in the ARM9 days, but things have become modular since gigabit became common in the consumer space (e.g. Atheros, Cavium, Broadcom, etc.).

New chips in the pipeline would be interesting for WISP (POE), DIY solar, security cameras, LED lighting, NAS, etc. projects and might/will have the processing capacity to make use of gigabit speed-- TI has several A15 multi-core "Keystone" CPUs with an onboard Ethernet switch, Freescale QorIQ LS1 has multi-core A7 and A15 parts listed (moving to ARM with this generation, as well), and of course Broadcom never stopped producing these network-SOC chips (only really available for infrastructure applications). Freescale and TI both seem fairly open-source friendly these days...

TI AM335x is already here and has a built-in 3 port switch (2 copper + 1 for CPU), though CPU can only deal with about 300mbps of traffic (switch is wire speed) and only TI seems to connect the second Ethernet port.

Would be interested if you produce any board based in these multi-core + multi-LAN platforms in the future.