BiTMICRO Networks to Expand IDE/ATA Solid State Flash Drive Offering with E-Disk UDMA Series.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

FREMONT, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 11, 2002

New ATA Series Will Provide UDMA-100 Support, Unmatched

Performance and a Wealth of Features Including Encryption

BiTMICRO Networks, Inc., a premier supplier of high performance solid state drive storage devices and storage management solutions, has just announced the extension of its E-Disk(R) legacy IDE/ATA solid state disk flash drive storage product line with the new UDMA series introduction. The storage capacity will be up to 75.7 GB and 17.7 GB in 3.5-inch and in 2.5-inch form factors respectively. The series initial product release is scheduled this year.

Included in the ATA/IDE flash drives planned releases is E-Disk UDMA-100 (ATA-100) that is compliant with the industry standard ATA/ATAPI-7 (T13/1532D). With the implementation of patented FlashBus(TM) technology, the UDMA-100 flash drive solid state disk device will have sustained random read and write data transfer rates of 68 MB per second, random access time of 42 microseconds, and a random input and output (I/O) rate of 12,500 IOPS.

The E-Disk UDMA flash drive series will support PIO modes 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 with maximum transfer rates of 3.3, 5.2, 8.3, 11.1 and 16.7 MB/sec respectively; multiword DMA modes 0, 1, 2 with maximum transfer rates of 4.2, 13.3 and 16.7 MB respectively; Ultra DMA modes 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 with maximum transfer rates of 16.7, 25, 33.3, 44.4, 66.7, and 100 MB/sec respectively.

An embedded real-time encryption option with selectable NIST certified hardware DES/TDES strength from 64-bit to192-bit will be offered as well. No information in the UDMA E-Disk solid state flash disk series will be left unprotected. The entire E-Disk contents including the boot sector and operating system will be encrypted. The real-time encryption solution offered will be completely independent from any operating systems and will not require any device driver support.

The UDMA E-Disk solid state flash disk series' embedded real-time cryptographic technology will deliver privacy, confidentiality, authentication and authorization to different levels of users. The operation of encryption/decryption is completely transparent to the users and will not degrade E-Disk performance. This option will add another physical layer of data security to BiTMICRO's current proprietary and patented E-Disk's data protection features that include securErase(TM), DataSentinel(TM) and PowerGuard(TM).

"BiTMICRO has adopted a customer-driven product roadmap that addresses storage requirements for both today and tomorrow. As a result, we have been developing a comprehensive offering of real value-added solutions that meet or exceed our clients' expectations and needs," commented Rudy Bruce, president of BiTMICRO. "Our E-Disk device's extensive wealth of new features, unmatched performance and vast options have raised the bar in the solid state storage arena. We are committed to fully exploit our resources to ensure that we always have another home run for our customers under our sleeves."

Other E-Disk flash disk distinctive features will be similarly included to the UDMA series. These features include higher degree of data security and MTBF; data integrity even in the event of ungraceful power degradation; irretrievable erasure of data within seconds; no latency; no device drivers required for installation and operation; completely bootable; no need for HDD, battery backup or UPS for non-volatility; rugged, lightweight and consume only a maximum of 4.5 watts of power during reads and writes.

Like their predecessors, the UDMA flashdrives will be ideal for embedded and applied computing applications that require high reliability, performance, data security and ruggedness such as telecom infrastructure network elements, pipeline monitoring, video and audio editing, data recording, digital mapping, financial on-line transactions, homeland defense security, military, aerospace and enterprise environments including proxy servers, NAS, SAN and RAID.

These new UDMA flashdrive devices will be compatible with Linux, Solaris, Windows, MacOS and LynxOS. It also supports AIX, FreeBSD, HP-UX, IRIX, NetBSD, OS/2, QNX, VxWorks, SCO Unixware and OpenServer, Solaris x86 and Tru64.

For more E-Disk flashdrive information, including product pricing, contact BiTMICRO Networks at 45550 Northport Loop East, Fremont, CA 94538, http://www.bitmicro.com or 510/74E-DISK / 510/743-3475.

About BiTMICRO Networks

BiTMICRO Networks, Inc. (http://www.bitmicro.com), a privately held California corporation, is the world's premier supplier of high performance solid-state disk, flash drive, and storage management solutions. BiTMICRO's solutions offer unmatched performance, data availability, and manageability across a spectrum of platforms from entry systems to super computers. The E-Disks solutions are offered with SCSI, IDE/ATA or Fibre Channel interfaces in 2.5-inch and 3.5-inch HDD footprints and 19-inch rackmount configurations. Their engineering methods, expertise and flexible system architecture bring to their clients highly reliable and upgradeable storage solutions and also address custom-design application requirements.

Note to Editors: E-Disk, FlashBus, PowerGuard, DataSentinel, BiTMICRO Networks(TM) and BiTMICRO(TM) are trademarks of BiTMICRO Networks, Inc. Others are trademarks of their respective companies or other countries.