 cost per bit. For many applications, a single system on a chip (SOC) suffices to attain target platform throughput. Broadcom Trident/Tomahawk is one family of SOC's that has been integrated into platforms for data center applications by dozens of OEM and original design manufacturer (ODM) suppliers. In between there is wide area network (WAN) merchant silicon, which has a reduced feature set compared to custom silicon but still attains a cost per bit very close to data center merchant silicon. Broadcom Qumran/Jericho, Cavium Xpliant, and Barefoot Networks Tofino are examples of WAN merchant silicon. WAN merchant silicon is important to Tier 1 network operators because it has critical features that are lacking in data center merchant silicon that are needed to (1) manage multiple services on the same platform (Ethernet and IP); (2) seamlessly connect legacy brownfield routers to new green- field network fabrics; and (3) handle the bursty nature of customer traffic in the network. Simplification: One of the reasons why Web 2.0 companies have SO successfully driven down the cost per bit in packet switching infrastructure is because of a willingness to eliminate all but the most essential features required on switch silicon and this strategy has been very successful as evidenced by the success of data center merchant silicon in Web 2.0 data centers. We spent a year analyzing the ability of data center and WAN merchant silicon to meet our service require- ments and determined that WAN merchant silicon in conjunction with VNF software can meet the requirements at a dramatically lower cost per bit compared to custom silicon. Current generation data center merchant silicon has too many requirement gaps to meet all of the varied packet ser- vice requirements, but this area is evolving rapidly with several merchant silicon entrants creating more flexible programmable pipelines with tremendous SOC throughputs. Given the rapid prog- ress in technology, each new generation of merchant silicon will offer significant benefits,