ALi Announces New, Lowest Power 1394 OHCI Control Chip Availability; Company Leverages Technology Portfolio to Move Toward the Convergence of PCs &Consumer A/V Products.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 7, 2000

With 1394 emerging as the de facto interface in the information appliance market, ALi, a major PC chipset manufacturer, announced today its new 1394 Open Host Controller Interface (OHCI) Link Layer control chip -- the M5251.

The M5251, featuring a 2.5-volt core, is the lowest power consumption 1394 Link Layer control chip on the market, making it ideal for both desktop and mobile PC implementations. The M5251 is fully compatible with OHCI version 1.0 specification, supporting 100 Mbps, 200 Mbps and 400 Mbps data transfer rate. Compliant with PCI 2.2 specification, the M5251 supports up to a 66MHz PCI interface clock.

According to Dataquest, 30 million PCs will be 1394 enabled in the year 2000. Current trends indicate that the costs for 1394 features may drop below $5.00 by the third quarter, which provides cost incentives to revive PCs and peripherals with more consumer-oriented applications.

1394 is a multimedia bus enabling peripheral device to perform high-speed data transfers without going through the host. This peer-to-peer interconnect capability has made 1394 a mainstream interface for the next generation digital consumer appliances. It also energizes PCs to migrate into the digital information appliance realm.

&uot;With the M5251, ALi not only demonstrates its capability in I/O interface, but also illustrates another major step in its efforts to converge technologies from PCs and consumer electronics products,&uot; commented Nancy Hartsoch, Vice President Marketing and Sales/COO at ALi.

Through strategic alliances with 1394 PHY (Physical Layer) manufacturers, ALi is able to offer a total 1394 solution to the market. Packaged in a 128-pin PQFP (Plastic Quad Flat Pack), the M5251 is offering engineering samples now with mass production scheduled in April.

About ALi:

ALi is one of the leading personal computer core logic chipset manufacturers in the world. In addition to core logic chipsets, the company designs and manufactures a full range of PC peripheral devices, which include X86 embedded controllers, super I/O controllers, windows accelerators, fax/modem controllers, scanner controllers, as well as MPEG and CD-ROM controllers. In recent years, ALi has devoted to the development of DVD servo control ICs and MPEG-II decoder ICs which can be applied to both the PC market and the consumer and information appliance market. The company aims to become a major solution provider in the emerging information appliance era. Currently the company employs over 500 people with sales revenue of 4 billion NT dollars in 1999.