Banderacom Introduces Industry's First InfiniBand Chip Architecture; Banderacom Accelerates Deployment of INFINIBAND Silicon.Business Editors & High-Tech Writers AUSTIN, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 24, 2000 Banderacom Inc., an InfiniBand(tm)(sm) semiconductor start-up company start-up company A new business. , today announced IBandit(tm), the industry's first InfiniBand semiconductor architecture and the foundation for a suite of high performance InfiniBand Channel Adapters. IBandit is an InfiniBand Trade Association The InfiniBand Trade Association (IBTA) is the standards organization that defines and maintains the InfiniBand specification. It is an industry consortium. The IBTA was established in 1999, and its most prominent members include Cisco, IBM, Intel, Mellanox, QLogic, Sun and standards compliant semiconductor architecture incorporating a comprehensive set of standard features. IBandit single system-on-chip devices includes integrated SerDes, dual PCI/PCI-X interfaces, built-in PCI (1) (Payment Card Industry) See PCI DSS. (2) (Peripheral Component Interconnect) The most widely used I/O bus (peripheral bus). bridge and arbiters, and other integrated features that drastically reduce the time and cost of implementing complex multi-chip designs. "Banderacom's IBandit incorporates a flexible and extensible set of features for a first-to-market architecture," said Vernon Turner, vice president, Global Enterprise Server Solutions at IDC. "Features such as 4x support, which were not expected to be available for another year or two, raises the bar for InfiniBand competitors who follow." Flexible and future-proof, the IBandit architecture supports features you may need now and will certainly need soon such as 4X (10 Gigabit) links, PCI-X (PCI eXtended) An enhanced PCI bus technology originally developed by IBM, HP and Compaq that is backward compatible with existing PCI cards. PCI and 32-bit PCI-X slots are physically the same, and PCI cards can plug into PCI-X slots. support, multiple virtual lanes Also called a "VLAN," it is a logical subgroup within a local area network that is created via software rather than manually moving cables in the wiring closet. It combines user stations and network devices into a single unit regardless of the physical LAN segment they are attached to and and large Maximum Transfer Units (MTU (1) (Maximum Transmission Unit, Maximum Transfer Unit) The largest frame size that can be transmitted over the network. For example, an Ethernet MTU is 1,500 bytes. Messages longer than the MTU must be divided into smaller frames. ). The IBandit architecture was designed with extreme flexibility in mind, and can interface to the broadest variety of SCSI SCSI in full Small Computer System Interface Once common standard for connecting peripheral devices (disks, modems, printers, etc.) to small and medium-sized computers. SCSI has given way to faster standards, such as Firewire and USB. , Fibre Channel, Gigabit Ethernet An Ethernet standard that transmits at 1 Gbps. Used mostly to connect high-end workstations and servers as well as for network backbones, Gigabit Ethernet transmits full duplex from point to point using switches and half duplex in a shared environment (CSMA/CD) using a hub. and other devices. Flexibility extends through the software which selectively bypasses transport acceleration hardware to accommodate future standards and interoperability requirements. IBandit Features: InfiniBand(IB) Media Access Controller (MAC) The MAC is core to using InfiniBand technology and Banderacom has incorporated four MACs, to handle high-speed traffic, data buffering In computing, a buffer is a region of memory used to temporarily hold data while it is being moved from one place to another. Typically, the data is stored in a buffer as it is retrieved from an input device (such as a keyboard) or just before it is sent to an output device (such , packet forming, flow control, error detection and management. The component is similar to other ATM and Ethernet protocols, yet it supports three virtual lanes (VLs) to ensure better utilization of bandwidth. Banderacom has increased its capabilities by adding an Integrated SerDes, which eliminates the need for expensive external components. Transaction Switch The core of the IBandit architecture, which creates the maximum amount of flexibility, is a protocol agnostic ag·nos·tic n. 1. a. One who believes that it is impossible to know whether there is a God. b. One who is skeptical about the existence of God but does not profess true atheism. 2. , wire-speed transaction switch. With an aggregate throughput in excess of 50 Gigabits per second, the transaction switch enables maximum flexibility for routing traffic between ports. Maximum sustained bandwidth is achieved utilizing 256 Kbytes of internal memory. IBandit Protocol Engine The integrated IBandit protocol engine hardware accelerates InfiniBand transport functions for a dramatic increase in the transport of the protocol. Additionally, Banderacom has incorporated a number of functions in the hardware, which include memory registration, partition keys, work queues and RDMA (Remote Direct Memory Access) A communications protocol that provides transmission of data from the memory of one computer to the memory of another without involving the CPU. InfiniBand, Virtual Interface (VI) and RDMA Over IP are all forms of RDMA. . PCI/PCI-X Bus IBandit features two buses, with PCI/PCI-X compatible bus interfaces, for a flexible solution to server and processor connectivity. Each bus can operate at up to 133Mhz (the maximum allowed by the PCI-X standard) to support the full bandwidth potential of four 1x (or one 4x) InfiniBand connections. An integrated PCI/PCI-X bridge eliminates the need for expensive external components. InfiniBand is an industry standards based interconnect technology that dramatically increases scalability, reliability, and flexibility of server and storage systems used in modern networks. Whereas today's storage and server networks require a multitude of different interconnect technologies including Gigabit Ethernet, Fiber Channel, SCSI and PCI interconnect, ultimately InfiniBand can replace any or all of these within data centers providing a universal interconnect fabric enabling new, lower cost, higher performance and more reliable networks that are not possible today. The InfiniBand Trade Association is an industry trade organization dedicated to developing and promoting the InfiniBand architecture. More information about the InfiniBand Trade Association and specifications can be found at www.infinibandta.org. About Banderacom Banderacom is a privately held, fabless semiconductor company A fabless semiconductor company specializes in the design and sale of hardware devices implemented on semiconductor chips. It achieves an advantage by outsourcing the fabrication of the devices to a specialized semiconductor manufacturer called a semiconductor foundry or "fab. located in Austin, Texas. Banderacom is focused on dramatically increasing the scalability, reliability, flexibility and time-to-market of networking, storage and server system manufacturer's products by providing flexible, interoperable, high performance InfiniBand(tm) semiconductors. Banderacom was founded by a veteran team from the microprocessor and communications semiconductor industries in 1999, and has received funding from Austin Ventures, Crossroads Systems, Intel Corporation (company) Intel Corporation - A US microelectronics manufacturer. They produced the Intel 4004, Intel 8080, Intel 8086, Intel 80186, Intel 80286, Intel 80386, Intel 486 and Pentium microprocessor families as well as many other integrated circuits and personal computer networking and Jato Tech Ventures. Banderacom is a member of InfiniBand Trade Association. Further information on Banderacom may be found on our Web site: www.banderacom.com, or call for information: 512/302-0002. |
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