DOLPHIN: Leader in PCI Express Software and Hardware for multi-computing systems

Founded in 1992 and based in Oslo, Norway, DOLPHIN INTERCONNECT SOLUTIONS is a company specialising in high-performance interconnect technologies. Building on its long-standing expertise in advanced IT architectures, the company has gradually established itself as a leading player in the field of low-latency communications between IT systems.

DOLPHIN designs and develops hardware and software solutions based primarily on PCI Express technology, intended to interconnect multiple computers so that they function as a unified system. These solutions are used in demanding environments such as embedded systems, scientific applications and OEM platforms.

The company also contributes to the development of major industry standards such as PCI, SCI, StarFabric and PCI Express, thereby consolidating its position within the ecosystem of distributed computing architectures.

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MXC960 – CompactPCI Serial PCIe 4.0 Switch

The MXC960 is a 3U CompactPCI Serial switch combining PCIe 4.0 and Gigabit Ethernet. It interconnects multiple CPUs and I/O devices, supports Transparent and NTB modes, and extends the PCIe fabric to external chassis or equipment through copper or fibre connectivity.

eBox 4 – 4U PCIe Expansion

The eBox 4 is a 4U PCIe expansion chassis designed to add and remotely locate PCI Express cards away from the host system. Its configurable design supports different backplanes, PCIe generations and cabling solutions for development, test, data acquisition and computing applications.

eBox 4 Pro – PCIe 5.0 Expansion

The eBox 4 Pro is a high-density PCIe 5.0 expansion chassis for systems combining GPUs, FPGAs and high-bandwidth I/O cards. The 4U platform supports up to nine PCIe 5.0 x16 peripherals and provides up to 4800 W of total power.

Typical applications of DOLPHIN solutions

DOLPHIN solutions are designed for environments requiring very low-latency, high-bandwidth communication between computer systems. They are used in architectures where multiple computers must operate as a coherent, high-performance system.

DOLPHIN focuses its technologies primarily on three main areas of application:

Embedded systems: integration into platforms requiring rapid, deterministic communication between IT components.
Scientific applications: computing environments requiring high-performance interconnections between computing nodes.
OEM applications: integration of Dolphin solutions into third-party systems, designed and marketed by manufacturers.

More broadly, the solutions are used in contexts where data exchange performance is critical, notably for:

High-performance computing (HPC)
Multi-computer architectures
Distributed systems requiring efficient communication between processors

PCIe and VPX technologies at DOLPHIN

PCI Express (PCIe)

The technological core of Dolphin is based on the advanced implementation of the PCI Express standard:

Very high-speed, low-latency interconnect
High performance in terms of latency and bandwidth
Support for the following architectures:
- Peer-to-Peer (P2P)
- RDMA (Remote Direct Memory Access)
- Distributed shared memory (SISCI API)

Dolphin solutions incorporate:

PCIe hardware (cards, switches, cables)
eXpressWare software including:
SuperSockets
Optimised TCP/IP drivers
Shared memory API

These technologies enable faster inter-processor communications and the deployment of high-performance distributed architectures.

VPX and embedded architectures

Dolphin extends its PCIe technologies to embedded environments via VPX / OpenVPX architectures.

Integration into high-performance embedded systems
Use of PCIe fabrics to interconnect modules
Low-latency communication between processors

The solutions enable the design of distributed, scalable systems suited to constrained environments, with deterministic communications for critical applications.