Juniper represented 40 percent of revenues for the first half of 2007, and that figure could grow as the company launches more systems based on EZchip processors, Fruchter said on yesterday's earnings call.

    That makes Juniper EZchip's growth vehicle, even as Cisco begins to ramp. "We believe that based on the progress that is being made that Cisco will start production sometime in 2008," Fruchter said.

    Fruchter said EZchip also has wins with Ciena Corp. (Nasdaq: CIEN - message board), Ericsson AB (Nasdaq: ERIC - message board), Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. , Nokia Siemens Networks , Nortel Networks Ltd. (NYSE/Toronto: NT - message board), Tellabs Inc. (Nasdaq: TLAB - message board; Frankfurt: BTLA), and ZTE Corp. (Shenzhen: 000063 - message board; Hong Kong: 0763).

    All told, EZchip has 115 design wins, and 37 of those systems are shipping in production, Fruchter said.

    It would all add up to a nice start, except that EZchip started eight years ago, part of a network processor gold rush that targeted the masses of telecom equipment startups forming around 1999. As those companies died out, so did the network processor startups. (See Cogni-Gone?)

    That leaves EZchip and its metro/core competitors, such as Bay Microsystems Inc. and Xelerated Inc. , in the position of relying on a handful of major customers. (Wintegra Inc. chases the access market, giving it a wider base of potential business.)

    Aside from Cisco and Juniper, there's also Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU - message board). But Fruchter indicated that the transition from ASICs to off-the-shelf parts is slow for big companies. Alcatel just hasn't made the switch yet, he said.

    EZchip is in the process of buying back its shares from its venture investors. Once that's done, the company will "go public" by merging with LanOptics, presumably putting an end to the LanOptics name.