AMCC Extends Fibre Channel Family With Highly Integrated Hex and Quad Port Bypass Circuits for SAN Applications.

SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 10, 1999--

The S2074 and S2071 Offer the Industry's Best

Combination of Reduced Jitter, Real Estate, Power and Price

Applied Micro Circuits Corp. (AMCC) (Nasdaq:AMCC), a leader in high-bandwidth silicon connectivity, today announced two new 1.0625Gbps port bypass circuit (PBC) additions to its Fibre Channel family of ICs, ideally suited for use in the Storage Area Network (SAN) market, including Fibre Channel storage peripherals, Just a Bunch of Disks (JBOD) and RAID applications.

The S2074 hex PBC with repeater and the S2071 quad PBC feature a higher integration of port bypass circuits, which allow designers to quickly and inexpensively develop storage arrays with more drives and integrated hub ports. Each device offers the design flexibility of 'mixing and matching' parts together to achieve different combinations of disk drives, thus extending to AMCC customers a complete family of devices, consistent with Fibre Channel standards. The S2074 and S2071 will be featured at COMDEX, November 15-19, at the AMCC booth in the Fibre Channel Solutions Room N250 at the Las Vegas Convention Center.

"The S2071 and S2074 enable designers to maximize port and drive density and maintain a high gigabit signal quality using fewer components," said Jon Siann, AMCC's marketing director for datacom products.

"Using AMCC's proven bipolar fabrication and design expertise, these two new IC's feature a higher integration of port bypass circuits, thus enabling the designer significant cost and power savings over existing solutions available today. As further additions to our family of Fibre Channel products, these chips extend AMCC's expertise into the SAN arena, providing our customers with a total solution for their high-speed data networking and storage needs."

Both devices facilitate data transmission in Fibre Channel Arbitrated Loop (FC-AL) topologies and are used in full-speed 1.0625Gbps disk arrays. The integration of multiple port bypass circuits on a single chip translates to reduced part count, circuit size and cost. (See Figure 1 for a typical network application.) Both parts exceed ANSI X3T11 FC-AL Direct Attach Disk Drive specifications for greater resiliency and low jitter accumulation, are suitable for both coaxial and optical links and utilize a 3.3V power supply.

In addition, the S2074 contains a monolithic clock recovery unit (CRU) which is configured as a repeater, and a lock detect feature that monitors the frequency and integrity of the serial data inputs. The S2074 architecture provides designers with substantial real-estate savings and a typical 1.0W power consumption -- a 23% reduction over existing solutions. Furthermore, the S2074 does not require thermal management, unlike competitive solutions, and operates over the commercial temperature range of 0 to 70 degrees Celsius.

The S2074 clock and data recovery Phase Locked Loop (PLL) provides low jitter transfer peaking of (less than)0.15 dB and high jitter tolerance. The CDR re-times incoming serial data, detects whether a valid signal is present and outputs a low jitter serial data stream. Under loss of signal (LOS) conditions, the PLL locks onto the local reference clock (at selectable frequencies of 106.25MHz or 53.125MHz) to provide a steady output clock.

Pin-compatible with the Vitesse VSC7122, the S2071 quad port bypass circuit offers 0.7W of typical power dissipation and utilizes high bandwidth, low skew differential circuitry for minimum jitter accumulation and excellent noise immunity. Both the S2071 and S2074 include TTL bypass selects for each channel allowing a disk drive to be bypassed if necessary, thus offering increased reliability and flexibility for the system designer. Each device also supports differential LVPECL-compatible I/O to minimize crosstalk and maximize data signal integrity.

Pricing and Availability

Samples of the S2074 and S2071 will be available in November. Packaged in a 64-pin PQFP and 44-pin PQFP respectively, the S2074 is priced at $19.75 and the S2071 is priced at $7.50 each in quantities of 1,000.

About AMCC

AMCC designs, develops, manufactures and markets high-performance, high-bandwidth silicon solutions for the world's optical networks. The Company utilizes a combination of high-frequency, mixed-signal design expertise and multiple silicon process technologies to offer IC products for the telecommunications market that address the SONET/SDH and ATM transmission standards and for the data communications markets that address the Gigabit Ethernet, ATM and Fibre Channel transmission standards. AMCC's core technologies also address ATE and high-speed computing needs.

AMCC's corporate headquarters and wafer fabrication facilities are located in San Diego, California. Sales and consulting engineering offices are located throughout the world. For further information regarding AMCC and its products, write: Marketing Communication Department, AMCC, 6290 Sequence Drive, San Diego, California 92121-4358; or call 800/755-AMCC (800/755-2622) or 619/450-9333; or fax [phone]; or email [e-mail]; or visit our website at http://www.amcc.com.

Forward Looking Statements

Except for historical information contained herein, the matters set forth in this news release are forward-looking statements that are subject to certain risks and uncertainties, including, but not limited to, "The Factors That May Affect Future Results" detailed in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended March 31, 1999, and the Company's other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Actual results could differ materially, as a result of such factors, from those set forth in the forward-looking statements.

Product photos, datasheets and application notes are available upon request. AMCC is a registered trademark of Applied Micro Circuits Corporation.