Adaptec 50X Controller Sets New CD-ROM Speed Record; Ultra ATA Controller, Firmware and Development Tools Yield Cost Effective Solution for Next Generation Drives.

MILPITAS, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 7, 1997--A new CD-ROM controller from Adaptec, Inc. raises the bar on CD-ROM speeds, this time to the 50X level.

Adaptec's AIC-9570 Ultra ATA CD-ROM controller, the industry's fastest, comes as part of a production-ready kit that will give designers a quick and cost effective means of bringing new CD-ROM drives to market.

AIC-9570 is a scaleable solution, allowing developers to integrate the controller at today's speeds and evolve to the 50X capability. The controller supports today's ATAPI interface and the next generation Ultra DMA protocol. Ultra DMA enables host data transfers up to 33 MB/s, doubling the transfer rate of a standard ATAPI drive. AIC-9570's scaleable capabilities allow designers to maintain designs across several generations, bringing down the total development cost and speeding-up time-to-market.

"Adaptec leads the market in SCSI, 1394 and ATA. We brought the first Ultra ATA disk drive controller to the storage industry last year and with the AIC-9570 we're sharing our Ultra ATA expertise with our optical design partners," said Mike Fisher, corporate vice president of Adaptec's Peripheral Technology Solutions business unit. "Similarly, as the optical industry adopts 1394, DVD and other future technologies Adaptec's design partners will continue to benefit from our breadth of products and technical expertise."

Adaptec's AIC-9570 provides designers today with a migration path to tomorrow's technologies including SCSI and 1394, allowing designers to reduce system development cost and time-to-market.

"Designers who begin 1394 CD-ROM development now with Adaptec's AIC-1394 target silicon will have a head-start on their 1394 development efforts allowing them to meet the future 1394 CD-ROM drive demand," said Danial Faizullabhoy, vice president of Adaptec's Target and Optical Peripheral Solutions group.

About Adaptec's Firmware

The firmware code, which Adaptec's design partners receive with the AIC-9570, is developed in a modular, scaleable fashion, giving designers the flexibility of advancing their X factor and technology roadmaps without the need to make significant design changes. Manufacturers' maintain their cost and time to market while migrating designs from 24X up to 50X; while moving from ATAPI, to Ultra ATA, SCSI and 1394.

"Adaptec is the market leader in CD-R software expertise with its award winning Easy-CD Pro, CD Creator and Toast software products. We are extending our forte to develop the firmware code for Adaptec's optical controllers," said Faizullabhoy. "CD-ROM manufacturers and consumers will benefit from ease-of-use and compatibility with Adaptec across the bus, from the Adaptec controller and firmware in the peripheral, to the Adaptec host adapter and the software on the system."

The ATAPI firmware code is based on a single processor, 24 MHz, 8032 design with a user configurable EPROM. The firmware modules are easily adapted to different industry standard interfaces such as SCSI and 1394, and other platforms including DSPs and different optical pickups and mechanisms.

How Adaptec Achieved 50X

Short CD-ROM lifecycles and consumer price sensitivity, demand faster solutions that do not inflate the designers' total system cost.

CD-ROM controllers must provide higher bandwidth, faster processing rates and superior data integrity. The AIC-9570 achieves this with its high-speed, on-the-fly ECC, internal Frequency Synthesizer, high buffer bandwidth and automated ATAPI commands.

Integrating the ECC into the controller increases data reliability and reduces the designers overall system cost. Adaptec's ECC implements erasure decoding for enhanced error correction capability, with guaranteed correction of any combination of two byte errors within any row or column in a data block. Adaptec's ECC is also designed to optimize buffer memory accesses during error detection and correction. This powerful ECC, with on-the-fly processing, allows faster data transfers with greater data reliability.

The AIC-9570 supports EDO DRAM and Fast Page Mode DRAM with a 16 bit wide interface. The wide buffer interface doubles the buffer throughput of traditional controllers. This improved bus utilization allows the drive to simultaneously expedite higher data transfers and faster seek times, resulting in faster access to information and faster access to other EIDE peripherals for the end-user.

By integrating the frequency synthesizer, Adaptec reduces the number of clock sources required by the controller. A single low frequency clock source generates the high speed clocks used to attain the higher buffer bandwidth. It also removes the requirement for separate 1X audio clocks, resulting in lower overall systems costs and improved data reliability due to fewer parts.

Adaptive Audio Streaming technology enables drives using the AIC-9570 to read audio data and graphical data at equal speeds, up to 50X. Traditionally, CD-ROM drives have slowed down to 1X to read audio data. Relieving this slowdown extends the spindle motor lifetime, resulting in lower cost and increased reliability.

Automation of certain EIDE commands allows the CD-ROM drive to independently respond to many requests, reducing microprocessor interrupts, and minimizing firmware and command execution latency.

Price and Availability

Adaptec's AIC-9570 is available to OEMs now in sample quantities from Adaptec. Volume OEM shipments of the AIC-9570 will begin in August at a price of less than $10.

About Adaptec

Adaptec provides bandwidth management technologies for organizations building the global information infrastructure. Its high performance I/O, connectivity, and network products are incorporated into the systems and products of major computer and peripheral manufacturers. Founded in 1981 and headquartered in Milpitas, Calif., Adaptec employs 3000 people worldwide in design manufacturing, sales, service and distribution. Adaptec's home page is http://www.adaptec.com .

CONTACT: Adaptec

Sheila Paul, 408/957-4595

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