Microchip for Trading Breaks 1 Microsecond Barrier

Fixnetix said it had developed a microchip that achieves "wire-to-wire" execution of trading instructions in less than one microsecond.

The chip, called iX-eCute, is a field programmable gate array, meaning its functions can be customized. Customers, Fixnetix said, "are now seeing latencies as low as 740 nanoseconds through the stack," wire to wire.

That is 740 billionths of a second. A microsecond is one millionth of a second.

The announcement came shortly before the opening of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association's Financial Services Technology Leaders Forum and Expo in New York, which runs through Thursday.

Fixnetix is offering live demonstrations of nanosecond trading at the SIFMA Show, held at The Hilton New York Hotel.

“Fixnetix continues to prove we are the fastest, most reliable and efficient system in the world,” says Hugh Hughes, Chief Executive of Fixnetix. “iX-eCute encapsulates our commitment to innovation by offering global customers the world’s fastest trading gateway.”

The chip executes more than 20 pre-trade risk checks, in under 100 nanoseconds, said Matt Dangerfield, Director of Trading Solutions at Fixnetix. Also, “one order has the same system latency as 1 million orders per second; this is a crucial point in trading and one which is often over looked,” he said.

Fixnetix provides outsourced services for ultra-low latency trading, market data, hosting and infrastructure connectivity as well as risk management for global banks, hedge funds and proprietary trading groups.

Fixnetix was founded in London in 2006.