Alliance Semiconductor Introduces Family of Resilient Packet Ring Controllers; Industry's First RPR Controllers with Adaptive Compute Technology.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 15, 2003

Alliance Semiconductor Corporation (Nasdaq:ALSC), a leading worldwide provider of analog and mixed signal products, high-performance memory products, and systems solutions for the communications, computing, embedded, industrial and consumer markets, today announced the availability of its AS95L2100 family of Resilient Packet Ring (RPR) Controllers(TM). The AS95L2100 family supports the emerging IEEE 802.17 RPR standard (draft 3.x) at various line interface speeds including OC-12, OC-48 and OC-192 for SONET, and 2.5G and 10G for Ethernet. The AS95L2100 family is optimized to support the requirements of high-speed, resilient ring networks for a variety of vertical markets including networking, communications, computing, cable infrastructure, servers and storage cluster systems.

Based on a unique, patented Adaptive Computing Architecture with adaptive logic optimized for RPR packet handling that guarantees wire-speed processing, Alliance's AS95L2100 family is the first RPR Controllers to track the continuous changes in the IEEE 802.17 drafts and, in addition, support, using a single controller, multiple ring and proprietary protocols such as Cisco's SRP(TM) v2.

The AS95L2100 family is highly integrated and supports multiple physical interfaces, modes, protocols and standards. The AS95L2100 family incorporates the resilient packet ring Media Access Control (MAC) along with most layer 1 and layer 2 functions including: SONET framers, Ethernet MACs, POS/HDLC, Generic Framing Procedure (GFP) and Wan Interface Sub-layer (WIS -- for Ethernet WAN applications) frame delineators and acts as a complete ring solution. The Controllers also integrate on-chip address matching Content Addressable Memory (CAMs), and large buffer memory for insert and high priority transit queues.

The AS95L2100 family is the industry's first RPR Controllers to terminate up to four full rings (eight ringlets) on a single controller enabling leading OEM customers to increase the number of rings supported per line card and thus increase the capacity of the system. Similarly, the AS95L2100 uniquely operates in either single line-card or dual-line card modes. In single-line card mode, a single AS95L2100 Controller can terminate the rings reducing the system cost and power consumption. In dual-line, two AS95L2100 are used to terminate the rings to provide local East and West rings redundancy.

"As a principal member of the IEEE 802.17 technical working group and a member of the RPR Alliance, we are seeing an acceleration in the adoption of RPR technology," said Robert Napaa, vice president of Marketing and Business Development for Alliance's System Solutions Business Unit. "The AS95L2100 RPR Controllers family provides flexibility in the deployment of SONET or Ethernet enabled RPR networks. By using our RPR controllers, customers can design, manufacture and market high capacity and very cost effective RPR line cards. They can remotely support changes in the RPR standard drafts and implement proprietary protocols on line cards already deployed in the field."

The AS95L2100 family includes three devices based on the same architecture and incorporates similar sets of features. The devices are 100 percent software compatible and differ in the bandwidth and line rate support. The AS95L2100 has a 20Gbps bandwidth and supports OC192, OC48 and 10GE line interfaces. The AS95L2102 has 10Gbps max bandwidth and supports OC48 and OC12 line interfaces. The AS95L2101 has 5Gbps max bandwidth and supports OC48, OC12 and 2.5GE line interfaces.

The AS95L2100 RPR Controllers are currently sampling along with a complete suite of software modules and drivers.

About the RPR Alliance

The RPR Alliance is an industry advocacy group committed to the development of an RPR technology standard for the networking industry. The Alliance promotes the adoption of an RPR standard for LANs, MANs, and WANs by educating the networking industry about RPR technology and the benefits of an IEEE standard as well as by fostering multi-vendor interoperability. Principal members of the RPR Alliance include Cisco Systems, Corrigent Systems, and Nortel Networks. Alliance Semiconductor, ARRIS, Cortina Systems, Infineon Technologies, Intel, Ixia, and Lantern Communications are participating members in the Alliance. For more information about the Alliance and the membership application, see http://www.RPRAlliance.org.

About Alliance:

Alliance Semiconductor Corporation (Nasdaq:ALSC) is powering every application with high performance solutions for the communications, computing and consumer electronics markets. Utilizing advanced process technologies and design expertise, Alliance provides leading OEMs with a broad portfolio of complementary technologies including analog and mixed-signal products, chip-to-chip connectivity products, networking controllers and high-performance memories. Alliance addresses the complete needs of system developers by leveraging its proprietary advances in Electromagnetic Interference (EMI) reduction, power management and timing technology, HyperTransport(TM) I/O connectivity and specialized memory solutions for next-generation applications. Founded in 1985, Alliance is headquartered in Santa Clara, Calif. with design centers in Bangalore and Hyderabad, India. The company is publicly traded and included in the S&P 600 Index. Additional information is available on the Alliance Web site at: http://www.alsc.com.