Essential introduces first PCI Network Interface Card for gigabit networks.WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 15, 1994--Essential Communications(TM) introduces a Network Interface Card for the Peripheral Component Interconnect See PCI. (hardware) Peripheral Component Interconnect - (PCI) A standard for connecting peripherals to a personal computer, designed by Intel and released around Autumn 1993. PCI is supported by most major manufacturers including Apple Computer. (PCI (1) (Payment Card Industry) See PCI DSS. (2) (Peripheral Component Interconnect) The most widely used I/O bus (peripheral bus). ). Driven by the requirements of compute-intensive applications, higher server performance, and increasing network bandwidth, the PCI-HIPPI NIC remedies the shortcomings of today's High Bandwidth Communications environments. Typical usage of the PCI-HIPPI NIC is connection of a video server to a gigabit backbone for digital media distribution, or attachment of a storage management system for network back-up. The PCI-HIPPI has two fiber optic interfaces, each complying with the Serial HIPPI standard -- a long wavelength laser ranging up to 10km on single mode and 1km on multi-mode, and a short wavelength laser ranging to 300 meters on multi-mode. Both are priced in $2,500 range for quantity purchases. The basis of the PCI-HIPPI NIC is an efficient flow-thru architecture implemented in a custom ASIC called RoadRunner. It provides the required PCI Configuration Register Definitions to support Plug-and-Play. The RoadRunner ASIC flows incoming HIPPI data to on-board SRAM. Transfer to the host begins immediately upon receipt of data and is not held up waiting for an end of packet, thus ensuring the lowest possible latency. Outbound data is assembled from host memory into packets and transmitted at full HIPPI bandwidth. On board processing eliminates host processor intervention in any HIPPI dependent transactions. All HIPPI operations occur transparently to the host. In order to provide the greatest amount of user flexibility for Unix, NT and NetWare drivers, the Essential HIPPI Network driver API supports 3 different usage modes: as a network interface for TCP/IP TCP/IP in full Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol Standard Internet communications protocols that allow digital computers to communicate over long distances. , as a channel interface (e.g. IPI-3 or SCSI) and as a "raw" character device. Essential's TCP/IP interface complies with RFC1374. HIPPI, or High-Performance Parallel Interface The introduction to this article provides insufficient context for those unfamiliar with the subject matter. Please help [ improve the introduction] to meet Wikipedia's layout standards. You can discuss the issue on the talk page. , is the industry standard for high bandwidth networking today in both system-to-system and system-to-peripheral environments. Standardized by the American National Standards Institute See ANSI. (body, standard) American National Standards Institute - (ANSI) The private, non-profit organisation (501(c)3) responsible for approving US standards in many areas, including computers and communications. ANSI is a member of ISO. (ANSI (American National Standards Institute, New York, www.ansi.org) A membership organization founded in 1918 that coordinates the development of U.S. voluntary national standards in both the private and public sectors. It is the U.S. member body to ISO and IEC. ), HIPPI has been widely adopted by research, higher education and engineering organizations worldwide. Initiated by Intel and now supported by over 300 vendors, PCI was developed to function as a processor-independent backplane between high-speed peripherals, memory and CPU on the desktop and at the server. In networks, it is also used to accommodate the traffic between interface cards and memory. PCI is defined for both 32 and 64 bit wide operation. PCI is interoperable with ISA, EISA, MCA, SBUS and VME by having defined a standard bridging technique to these existing busses. PCI's bandwidth of 132 megabytes per second (unit) megabytes per second - (MBps, MB/s) Millions of bytes per second. A unit of data rate. 1 MB/s = 1,000,000 bytes per second (not 1,048,576). throughput, together with its processor-independence, extensibility, and interoperability with other busses make it the preferred bus architecture for gigabit network interface cards for PC's, servers, and personal workstations. Essential manufactures a network that matches the PCI bus in bandwidth and throughput. Essential is a leading provider of end-to-end solutions for the High Bandwidth Communications market. Its products include multi-gigabit switching hubs, gigabit per second media interconnect cards, network interface cards for a wide range of Servers and Personal Workstations, drivers for UNIX, NetWare and Windows NT, gateways to legacy networks and storage devices. Essential customers include IBM, Intel, Hewlett-Packard, GTE, Texas Instruments, Loral, Amoco, Martin Marietta, TRW, Hughes, Carnegie-Mellon University, Cornell University and the National Center for Supercomputer Applications See NCSA. at the University of Illinois University of Illinois may refer to:
Essential is a founding member of the HIPPI Networking Forum, along with Avaika Networks Corporation, Broadband Communications Products, IBM, Network Systems, PsiTech Inc. and the University of Minnesota (body, education) University of Minnesota - The home of Gopher. http://umn.edu/. Address: Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. . Network Systems Corp. of Minneapolis is a minority investor in Essential, and markets and supports Essential products worldwide. Essential was founded in 1992 and is based in Albuquerque, New Mexico “Albuquerque” redirects here. For other uses, see Albuquerque (disambiguation). Albuquerque (pronounced [ˈæl.bə.kɚ.kiː], Spanish: [al.βu. . CONTACT: Essential Communications
Bill Boas, 505/823-0100 or
bboas@esscom.com or
Mosaic URL: http://www.esscom.com/
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