ke the handling of electronic transactions, such as purchases charged to one's credit card, instructions to one's stockbroker, and SO on, relatively easy and secure. The need for global and secure connectivity, coupled with ubiquitous computing capabilities, dic- tates that the flow of unprecedented communications traffic will need to be reliably and systemati- cally managed between wired and wireless networks all over the planet, around the clock, and based on demand. The new global network is expected to be able to handle this type of demanding envi- ronment. This can largely be done with the advances in powerful microchips (network processors) that populate the motherboards of network switching equipment. These network processors are dis- cussed in more detail in the following chapters. 1 GIGABIT AND 10 GIGABIT ETHERNET One of the key technologies in the performance network arena is Gigabit Ethernet, which was devel- oped as the result of the natural evolution of Fast Ethernet.30 It preserves a very good compatibility with legacy software applications developed for and running on 10Base-T and Fast Ethernet networks (something that is always a good financial advantage). Above all, it offers a staggering bandwidth increase for campus networks. The ability to properly service heavy traffic and to interface Gigabit Ethernet networks with the rest of the world through switched equipment and routers is another dimension in the demand for fast network processing chips. 31 We will see this later in the recurring phenomenon. Although it sounded impossible a couple of years ago, the effort to further extend the Ethernet phi- losophy to a 10 Gbps network has already become a reality. The technology has become an IEEE stan- dard (IEEE 802.3ae-2002). Several vendors have proposed components, subsystems, and systems that can function in this realm that promise to revolutionize the industry both on the LAN and MAN/WAN. This revolution will not only increase its speed, but it will also improve the software compatibility that 