Complete tear-down and overview of a Cisco ASA5505 firewall for CCNA security candidates and also for IT repair technicians.

First I go over the motherboard from the perspective of a CCNA security candidate. On the CCNA security exam you do not need to know such details, but it helps to know what makes the ASA 5505 a hardware firewall in contrast to a glorified Linux software appliance or a PC running purely software firewall. Namely, in contrast to a software firewall, once the IPSec VPN tunnel is established by the CPU, the specialized security macro-processor takes over and does the encryption of the data flow in the hardware.

Next, I zoom in to the individual components at 10X magnification, and explain their functionality through the eyes of a component-level repair technicians.


Parts list for the Mainboard discussed in the video:
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Main Processor: AMD Geode XL600, x86 CPU running at 500MHz
Companion processor: AMD Geode CS35536
Physical IO chip for Layer1: Marvel 88ACS06 (octal PHY)
Onboard accelerator/ASIC: Cavium Nitrox Lite security macro processor
RAM: 512MB DDR RAM Module, PC3200
NVRAM: ST Microelectronics 24CD4WP (4Kbit EEPROM)
ROMMON: SST 49LF016C 2MB Flash chip
Flash: Cisco 128MB compact flash card
Security microcontroller for Flash: Atmel 12836RCT
Serial Console: ADM3202 RS232 transceiver
PoE controller: Linear Technology LTC4259ACGW


Parts list for the components:
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U13 SN2385BDCE or LTC4259ACGW
U31 MIC5209YM
U33=U36 Maxim Max1876A
U14 MK1491 clock synthesizer
U19 STI 24CD4WP
U4=U5 63L219 (dual FET???)
U54 TI PW539 16bit I2C to GPIO
U27 TI LC14A Hex inverter
U62 NE57814DD DDR bus terminator
U45 PIC18LF2220 Microcontroller
U59 11J07 (Atmel 12836RCT Flash security controller)
U61 SN74LVC08A
U17=U40 ADM3202
U32 MAX5003
U6 NE1617A temp. sensor
U?=U? Micrel 2026 USB power controller