Lowering the requirement of line-speed processing by considering traffic characteristics

To have line-speed processing ability is a fundamental rule in the design of high-density linecard in router and other network equipment. To satisfy this requirement, the traffic processing speed of the linecard should be not less than the sum of the individual link rates. With the quick increasing of link rate, the line speed processing requirement becomes too hard in high-density linecard design. This paper proposes that several characteristics of Internet traffic can be used to lower the packet processing speed of the high-density linecard. Thus it can help the community to change the design methodology from worst case oriented to real world traffic oriented. By introducing multiplexing gain, packet size gain and link efficiency gain, this paper shows that the total gain lowers the requirement of line-speed requirement significantly without damaging the line speed processing ability. Performance cost and engineering questions involved in the implementing of this method are also covered.