The HK-6100 is high-end desktop appliance targeting enterprise-class virtual customer-premises equipment (vCPE), edge routers that host virtual machines, switch controllers, storage controllers, mobile edge computing, and 5G base stations by communication service providers. It also has features for industrial applications.
The powerful CPU complex of the NXP LX2160A processor with its sixteen Arm Cortex-A72 cores is particularly suited to network functions virtualization (NFV) as the chip can run up to 16 heavyweight virtual network functions (VNFs). The integrated offload engines should not be overlooked, either, as cryptography processing and the compression and decompression engines are significantly faster than previous generations and many competitors. In addition, the LX2160A implements NXP’s second-generation Data Plane Acceleration Architecture (DPAA2), which accelerates other packet-processing chores. Since packets can flow through without CPU intervention, the switch latency is only about two microseconds. This configuration is typical of wireless base stations, and it replaces an external switch chip.
The NXP LX2160A SoC of the HK-6100 is accompanied by up to 16GB DDR4 main memory by four SO-DIMM modules. Storage is provided by 16GB eMMC flash memory onboard that can be expanded by one microSD card. There are two Gbit Ethernet RJ-45 ports, eight 10GbE SFP+ ports and two 25GbE SFP28 ports. Wireless networking modules for Wi-Fi or cellular connectivity can be added with M.2 connectors onboard plus there’s a PCIe x4 slot available for an expansion card. Two USB 3.0 ports are also provided.