Traditional NGFWs mostly lean on general-purpose CPUs to do everything: inspect traffic, enforce policy, forward packets, and handle management, all on the same silicon. That architecture worked fine when networks were smaller and traffic was more predictable. But the traffic volumes have exploded in ways general-purpose CPUs just weren’t built to handle. The result is exactly what you’d expect: throughput ceilings, latency spikes under load, and firewalls that become the bottleneck instead of the safeguard — right as businesses need them to scale.
The ASIC-Powered Firewalls are Hillstone’s answer, and the headline feature is hardware. Let’s get into what’s actually inside.
Proprietary ASIC Architecture for Dedicated Data Forwarding
On a CPU-only firewall, traffic inspection, forwarding, and management logic are all fighting for the same processor cycles. Under normal load that’s manageable, but the moment traffic spikes — a burst of device telemetry, a big transfer, or worse, an active attack — that contention turns into real strain, and performance and stability both take a hit right when you need them most.
All the Hillstone ASIC-Powered Firewalls are built around Hillstone’s proprietary, self-built ASIC chip, purpose-engineered to handle heavy data-forwarding workloads. That work gets offloaded from the primary CPU entirely, onto dedicated hardware built just for it.
Less strain on the system as a whole, more consistent performance, and — critically — business continuity even when the network is under heavy traffic or actively defending against a threat. The firewall keeps doing its job instead of becoming the weak link.
Extreme Performance and Microsecond Latency
Real-world traffic isn’t all big, easy-to-process packets — a lot of it comes in small packets, and legacy firewall architectures are notoriously worse at handling those efficiently, since there’s more per-packet overhead relative to payload. For applications where every millisecond counts that inefficiency shows up as dropped packets and lag that users absolutely notice.
The ASIC-powered platforms deliver highly improved firewall throughput, with small-packet forwarding efficiency holding at over 60% of large-packet capability, all while keeping latency under 4.8 microseconds.
Consistent, predictable performance regardless of the packet mix flowing through the network — meaning no packet drops or transmission lag in exactly the scenarios where that would be most costly.
Robust Extension Capability with High-Density Interfaces
Networks rarely stay the same size or shape for long. Bandwidth needs grow, topologies shift, and new connectivity types get added. Hardware with limited or fixed interface options forces an upgrade cycle every time the business outgrows it — an expensive, disruptive way to scale.
Hillstone ASIC firewall models possess High-Density Interfaces. Taking newly released A3705-B and A5105-B for an example. They pack multiple fixed 10GE interfaces into a compact 1RU form factor, plus two expansion slots that support a range of extension modules, scaling all the way up to 100GE ports..
Enterprises can adapt to new topologies and sudden bandwidth demands without ripping and replacing hardware — protecting the initial investment and letting performance scale alongside the business rather than lagging behind it.
The ASIC NGFWs (A3705-B and A5105-B) are Hillstone’s answer to a very real problem: legacy, CPU-bound firewall architecture just isn’t built for the traffic growth most networks are dealing with now. With a proprietary ASIC handling the heavy lifting, the firewalls deliver extremely high throughput, 4.8-microsecond latency, and flexible high-density interfaces — all in a compact, carrier-grade package. As part of the A-Series line, both models also extend that same high-performance foundation into Hillstone’s broader Hybrid Mesh Firewall architecture, carrying consistent protection from the on-prem edge into hybrid environments.
Together, these capabilities help reduce the time between identifying a risk and taking action.
For more details, reach out to Hillstone Networks representative.
