HyperTransport Consortium Announces Eight New Academic Members.

Taps Top Engineering Talent At Prestigious Universities Around the World

SUNNYVALE, Calif. -- Gaining increased access to esteemed researchers and scientists around the globe, the HyperTransport[TM] Technology Consortium today announced it has added eight prestigious academic institutions to its membership roster. The Consortium, an organization dedicated to developing, promoting and licensing the industry's lowest latency, highest bandwidth HyperTransport interconnect technology, extends free membership to any accredited educational institution. Membership provides full access to HyperTransport technology and intellectual property (IP) for educational purposes. In turn, academic institutions can play an active role in the development of innovative HyperTransport-based platforms and tools that further advance the capability and applicability of HyperTransport technology.

"Our academic members have made significant contributions to the HyperTransport standard, by identifying innovative ways to stretch the boundaries of HyperTransport performance and by providing increased development support, objective counsel and significant engineering prowess," said Mario Cavalli, general manager of the HyperTransport Consortium. "Through wider academic membership participation, the Consortium can innovate more rapidly and extend its lead with the highest performance interconnect technology in the industry."

New members include the Georgia Institute of Technology (Atlanta, Georgia), Simula Research Lab (Oslo, Norway), Universidad Autonoma de Barcelona (Barcelona, Spain), University of Hannover (Hannover, Germany), University of Murcia (Murcia, Spain), Dzemal Bijedic University (Mostar, Bosnia-Herzegovina), Institute of Computer Science of FORTH (Heraklion, Crete) and the University of Castilla La Mancha (La Mancha, Spain).

Accomplishments Through Academia: Center of Excellence

Over the last few years, academic members have provided substantial support to the HyperTransport Consortium. Universities have helped develop and distribute OEM reference design kits, IP solutions and in-depth documentation, while also providing engineering services to designers of products based on HyperTransport technology. The University of Mannheim, for example, has been instrumental in establishing and maintaining the Center of Excellence for HyperTransport Technology (CoEHT). The CoEHT provides product validation and compatibility testing for systems and subsystems based on the HyperTransport and HTX connectivity standards.

Universities Support HyperTransport

"High-performance interconnect technology is a crucial enabler for effectively coupling commodity accelerators to multi-core systems," said Sudhakar Yalamanchili, the Joseph M. Pettit Professor in the Georgia Tech School of Electrical and Computer Engineering. "Membership in the HyperTransport Consortium provides academics with invaluable intellectual and engineering insights into a leading interconnect standard and the ecosystem that surrounds it. Such insights and interactions have a tremendous positive influence on our research and curricular activities." Georgia Tech offers one of the largest programs of its kind in the U.S. with over 110 faculty members employed and more than 2,300 students enrolled.

"We are thrilled to be a member of the Hypertransport Consortium -- one of the most important forums for any academic researcher with interests in interconnection networks," said Olav Lysne, professor and director of research at Simula Research Laboratory. "Our membership provides us with very up-to-date knowledge on the progress of the most important interconnect technology in the industry, and gives us the opportunity to participate in discussions with an immensely strong and knowledgeable group of researchers and engineers." Simula Research Laboratory is a government-funded research institution in Oslo, Norway. Its mission is to do basic long-term research with a strong link to real applications. Its team on interconnection networks has a strong history, both in academic publication of research results, as well as delivering solutions to the industry.

"With its low latency and high bandwidth interconnect, HyperTransport technology provides the high-performance interconnect links we require," said Daniel Franco, professor of the Computer Achitecture and Operating Systems (CAOS) group at the Universidad Autonoma de Barcelona. "These high-performance links empower our in-depth research into the configuration and evaluation of high-performance computer architecture, as well as our dynamic resource management studies of interconnection systems." The CAOS at the Universidad Autonoma de Barcelona is a competitive research group that focuses its activities in the areas of parallel processing, ranging from parallel applications to multiprocessor systems.

"As a member of the Consortium, we look forward to collaborating with other members to further advance the standard," said Konstantin Septinus, research member of the Institute of Microelectronic Systems at the University of Hannover. "We bring extensive expertise to the Consortium, which will help us to evaluate related I/O interfacing implementations and influence the future direction of the standard." The Institute of Microelectronic Systems is a technology branch of the Leibniz University of Hannover. Activities comprise conception, design and evaluation of VLSI architectures and assigned VLSI circuits.

"Our advanced research in the areas of multiprocessor architectures, such as scalable cache-coherent protocols for cc-NUMAs, and chip multiprocessor architectures, including fault-tolerant designs, coherence protocols and power consumption, will benefit significantly through the use of HyperTransport technology," said Jose Manuel Garcia Carrasco, professor of the Parallel Computer Architecture Group at the University of Murcia. "We expect to develop more efficient and scalable cache-coherent protocols using HyperTransport, and believe that our membership will keep us informed of the latest technological developments." The Parallel Computer Architecture Group at the University of Murcia is one of the leading research groups at the Faculty of Computer Engineering. The University is a public higher education institution that comprises 16 areas of study and 5 Technical Schools (including 77 departments and 4 research institutes).

"We believe that HyperTransport technology has a great impact on the computer systems architecture in general," said Leid Zejnilovic, research member of Computer Systems Architecture Laboratory and professor at Dzemal Bijedic University. "By joining the Consortium, we gained access to member-only technical information that will enrich our teaching capacity and influence research at our recently established lab. In addition, by attending Consortium events, we gain the opportunity to learn something new and make contacts with other academic and industry members. This will significantly help our development and international cooperation." The Faculty of Information Technology is a young and dynamic institution with approximately 1,000 undergraduate and postgraduate students at Dzemal Bijedic University in Mostar. The goal is to develop world-class educational and research facilities for advanced technologies.

"High-speed interconnects are the backbone of current and future computing systems, where more and more processors work closely together," said Manolis Katevenis, head of the Computer Architecture and VLSI Systems Laboratory, Institute of Computer Science of FORTH. "Our institute has been conducting research in this area for over 20 years, enabling us to make significant technical contributions to the Consortium." The Foundation for Research & Technology - Hellas (FORTH) is the premier research center in Greece, located in Heraklion, Crete.

"We look forward to working with the HyperTransport Consortium's Technical Working Group to develop and submit technical proposals that will advance the standard," said Paco Quiles, professor at the University of Castilla La Mancha. "Our extensive experience in advanced interconnect technology will enable us to work closely with other Consortium members and contribute considerably toward the progress of the HyperTransport standard." The University of Castilla La Mancha (UCLM) is a public higher education institution dedicated to teaching, research and the dissemination of knowledge. The University has a large number of world-class research groups. The High Performance Architecture and Networks group (RAAP) is part of the Albacete Research Institute of Informatics: a Regional Centre of Excellence. Members of the RAAP Lab are devoted to development and innovation, focusing on the design and evaluation of computer network systems based on state-of-the-art computer and communications technologies, such as high-performance interconnects, wireless and broadband communications networks.

About the HyperTransport[TM] Technology Consortium

The HyperTransport Technology Consortium is a membership-based, non-profit organization that licenses, manages and promotes HyperTransport Technology. The HyperTransport Consortium was founded in 2001 by leading technology innovators like Advanced Micro Devices, Apple, Broadcom, Cisco, NVIDIA, PMC-Sierra and Sun Microsystems and counts on more than 50 industry-leading member companies worldwide, including Dell, HP and IBM. Membership is based on a yearly fee and it is open to companies interested in licensing the royalty-free use of HyperTransport technology and intellectual property. Consortium members have full access to the HyperTransport technical documents database, they may attend Consortium meetings and events and may benefit from a variety of technical and marketing services, including the new, member-driven web portal, whose business benefits are part of a wide array of services offered by the Consortium free of charge to member companies. To learn more about member benefits and how to become a Consortium member, please visit the Consortium Web site at www.hypertransport.org.

HyperTransport and HTX are licensed trademarks of the HyperTransport Technology Consortium. All other trademarks belong to their respective owners.