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Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC)

An application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) is a chip purpose-built to perform a defined set of functions faster and more cost-effectively than a general-purpose CPU. Understanding ASICs is essential for anyone working with specialized networking hardware like switches and routers.

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About this video

A general-purpose CPU is a powerful and flexible component capable of handling diverse computing tasks, but that versatility makes it expensive and sometimes ill-suited for environments where a single, repetitive operation must be performed at high speed and low cost. The application-specific integrated circuit, or ASIC, was developed to address exactly this tradeoff. Rather than being designed for broad applicability, an ASIC is engineered from the ground up to execute one specific function or a narrow set of related functions, delivering performance and cost efficiency that a general-purpose CPU cannot match for that particular task. Enterprise networking hardware offers some of the clearest real-world examples of ASICs at work. A managed switch, for instance, must forward packets between ports at very high speeds — a task that a CPU could technically perform, but slowly and at greater expense. By embedding dedicated ASICs on the switch hardware, manufacturers offload that packet-forwarding responsibility to circuitry purpose-built for it, dramatically improving throughput. Higher-end switches often contain both ASICs and a CPU, and this combination maps directly onto the distinction between the data plane and the control plane. The ASICs handle data-plane operations — the actual switching and forwarding of traffic — while the CPU supports control-plane functions such as management, configuration, and routing protocol processing. Understanding how these two components divide responsibilities is foundational knowledge for anyone working with enterprise networking equipment.

What you'll learn

What's covered

Application-Specific Integrated Circuits

Key terms

Application Specific Integrated Circuits
ASIC
Custom silicon chips designed to perform specific network functions such as packet forwarding, switching, and encryption at wire speed. ASICs enable high-performance network hardware to process traffic far faster than general-purpose CPUs.
Switch
A network device that connects devices within a LAN and forwards traffic based on MAC addresses.
Data Link Layer
Layer 2 of the OSI model responsible for node-to-node data transfer and error detection on a single network segment.
Packet
A unit of data formatted for transmission over a network, containing a header, payload, and sometimes a trailer.
Data Plane
The part of a network device responsible for actually forwarding packets toward their destinations based on rules and tables built by the control plane. In a router, the data plane looks up each packet's destination in the forwarding table and sends it out the correct interface at high speed.
Control Plane
The part of a network device responsible for making routing and policy decisions, such as running routing protocols to build and maintain the routing table, which the data plane then uses to forward traffic. The control plane handles the intelligence of the network while the data plane handles the actual packet forwarding.

Topics

Asic Network Hardware Hardware Architecture Networking Data Plane Managed Switches

Transcript

In some of our specialized equipment, there's also a specialized integrated circuit. We call it an application specific integrated circuit. Let's get into what an ASIC is and cover the basics of it.

How a Typical Computer Works

Here's a typical computer, and let's say there's some sort of input, and that input is going to go into the RAM. The RAM gets sent to the CPU, the CPU responds back and puts it back into the RAM, and then there's some sort of output. And this is generally speaking how a lot of our computers work.

So a typical computer, at least what we think of as a typical computer, has this thing called a central processing unit, and it really is very diverse in what it can do. There's lots of aspects to it and lots of things that we can do, and it's very fast, and there's a lot of cool stuff that this CPU can do. Of course, it's a little more on the expensive side because it can do all this stuff, and it's not specialized in doing any one particular function. It can do a lot of functions fairly well.

Why We Need a Specialized Circuit

That is not great for all systems, though. There are many times that we need to make this chip cheaper or perform better in certain circumstances. And so we need a specialized CPU that does specialized work. For this special work, we create a specialized processing unit. We call that an application specific integrated circuit. It's a specific circuit designed to carry out specific functions. So where a CPU has very general application and can do a lot of different things, this ASIC is very specialized.

A Cisco Switch Example

Now, this right here is a Cisco switch, and it's a good example of what has an ASIC on it. A CPU could possibly perform some of the functions of a switch, but what would end up happening is it would be slower and cost a lot more, versus if we create an ASIC on here. And this actually has multiple ASICs here that will do the switching. It's specially designed to do switching, to be able to forward packets from one device to another device.

In one of my other lessons, I did open up this Cisco switch so we could see the actual four ASICs that are involved in this switch. These four ASICs that I'm pointing out right here is what's doing the switching between those ports. In fact, that switch actually has both ASICs, which does our switching, and a CPU, which does some general computing. And that's one of the things that separates out our data plane on that switch from the control plane.

So some equipment will have both, some equipment will just have an ASIC in it, some equipment will have just a CPU. In that switch case right there, since it's a high-end switch, it has both ASICs, which are performing those switching capabilities, and a CPU, which we can get into and manage this switch and be able to manage certain aspects from that control plane CPU.

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