GIGABIT ETHERNET NETWORK FULL-DUPLEX REPEATER A FIRST BY PACKET ENGINES INCORPORATED.

SPOKANE, Wash.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 26, 1997--Packet Engines Incorporated(TM) today announced the FDR12, the company's first Gigabit Ethernet full-duplex repeater product.

The FDR12 is a 14-port repeater designed for high-performance workgroups, high-speed backbones, server farms and backup systems. The product will be sold directly to early Gigabit Ethernet evaluators and will be offered to OEMs for integration with other products.

"The FDR12 is the first of several Gigabit Ethernet infrastructure products that will be produced by Packet Engines," said Bernard Daines, company president and CEO. "The FDR complements the G-NIC network interface card we announced last month. By June of this year, customers will be able to create Gigabit Ethernet networks entirely with Packet Engines' products."

PACKET ENGINES DESIGN

Packet Engines' Spokane-based engineering staff designed the ASICs used in the FDR12. Based on the Packet Engines GMAC Gigabit Media Access Control design, key ASICs are being fabricated by a number of semiconductor companies including Packet Engines; partner, Symbios Logic, based in Fort Collins, Colorado. This arrangement is the second product to benefit from the recently announced partnership between Packet Engines and Symbios Logic.

"The FDR12 provides a very attractive performance point between 100 Mbps switches and 1 Gbps switches," said Octavio Morales, director of product management at Packet Engines. "The economics of this product greatly improves the scalability of high-speed Ethernet systems."

PRODUCT DESCRIPTION

The FDR has fourteen ports. Twelve of the ports support Gigabit Ethernet according to the 1000BASE-SX specifications of IEEE P802.3z. One port has additional buffering to provide wide support for cascading full-duplex repeaters and Gigabit Ethernet switches. There are two versions of the product where this cascade port uses 1000BASE-SX and 1000BASE-LX technology. 1000BASE-LX allows for single-mode fiber optic links up to 3 km long. The final port provides supports 10BASE-T or 100BASE-TX to provide connection to legacy networks without requiring any additional purchase. A "trestle" connects the legacy port to the Gigabit Ethernet ports. The rack mountable unit occupies 2RU, or 3.5 inches, of vertical rack space.

WEB-BASED MANAGEMENT

The FDR12 has a full set of network management options. In addition to traditional SNMP, Telnet and serial port, the FDR12 supports management access using Web-based browsers like Netscape and Microsoft Explorer. "The FDR12 full-duplex repeater creates HTML pages. These pages contain information and status derived from the various SNMP MIBs supported by the repeater," according to P.J. Singh, Packet Engines' director of software.

AVAILABILITY

Packet Engines will unveil the FDR12 at the upcoming Networld+Interop show in Las Vegas in early May. The company will be exhibiting in booth 1123 in the North Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center. Production FDR12s will be available immediately following the Networld+Interop show. Prior to that time the company will complete field testing and evaluation by OEM companies. Pricing has not been released.

FULL GIGABIT-PER-SECOND CAPABILITY

The FDR12 is a Gigabit Ethernet full-duplex repeater. In a full-duplex repeater, a media access controller (MAC) is provided for every port together with a small memory buffer. In effect, the arbitration mechanism is removed from the link and placed in the repeater box. When traffic levels are high, the buffer can fill up. The repeater then uses IEEE 802.3x flow control to prevent the desktop computer from sending additional data which could cause the buffer to overflow.

The benefits of this arrangement include

-- Improved performance

-- Flexible topology and configuration

-- Sustained Gigabit per second throughput at any packet size

ABOUT GIGABIT ETHERNET

Gigabit Ethernet is the industry name for the IEEE effort to increase the speed of IEEE 802.3 networks to 1,000 Megabit-per-second (1 Gigabit-per-second) speeds. The IEEE currently has a project under way in a Task Force known as IEEE 802.3z. This effort was originated by Packet Engines and is now supported by over 100 companies through the Gigabit Ethernet Alliance. Packet Engines was also a founding member of the Alliance.

ABOUT PACKET ENGINES

Packet Engines Incorporated is a networking systems company focused on the Gigabit Ethernet market. Headquartered in Spokane, Washington, the company was founded by Bernard Daines in 1994. Since beginning internal Gigabit Ethernet efforts in July 1995, the company has successfully pushed for an industry standards effort, built a strong development and marketing team, delivered its first Gigabit Ethernet technology and secured venture funding. By mid-1997, the company will deliver high-level Gigabit Ethernet systems products via a variety of industry partners. Packet Engines expects Gigabit Ethernet will be the backbone LAN of choice, replacing FDDI and eliminating the need for a massive industry transition to ATM.

Contact http://www.packetengines.com for additional information about Packet Engines. -0-

Editors, please note:

ASIC = Application Specific Integrated Circuit NIC = Network Interface Card IEEE = Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers PCI = Peripheral Component Interconnect ATM = Asynchronous Transfer Mode FDDI = Fibre Distributed Data Interface MIB = Management Information Base SNMP = Simple Network Management Protocol

CONTACT: Packet Engines Incorporated

Nancy Goodspeed, 509/922-9190