IBM AND ONEX COMMUNICATIONS TEAM TO ACCELERATE INTRODUCTION OF OPTICAL NETWORKING CHIPS.IBM (International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY, www.ibm.com) The world's largest computer company. IBM's product lines include the S/390 mainframes (zSeries), AS/400 midrange business systems (iSeries), RS/6000 workstations and servers (pSeries), Intel-based servers (xSeries) and Onex Communications have entered into a strategic technology agreement intended to speed the introduction of high speed custom chips for optical communications Optical communications The transmission of speech, data, video, and other information by means of the visible and the infrared portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. networks. Under this technology relationship, IBM will manufacture customized ASICs (application specific integrated circuits Integrated circuits Miniature electronic circuits produced within and upon a single semiconductor crystal, usually silicon. Integrated circuits range in complexity from simple logic circuits and amplifiers, about 1/20 in. (1. ) developed by Onex for use in multi-service optical communications networks. These ASICs will include high performance communications cores from IBM and utilize IBM's SA-27E ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Circuit) Pronounced "a-sick." A chip that is custom designed for a specific application rather than a general-purpose chip such as a microprocessor. process technology, both of which are optimized to deliver the scalable bandwidth and data throughput The speed with which a computer processes data. It is a combination of internal processing speed, peripheral speeds (I/O) and the efficiency of the operating system and other system software all working together. 1. required by optical network equipment makers. As part of the agreement, IBM will acquire an equity stake in Onex. Onex Communications' innovative iTAP chip architecture was developed to enable optical network equipment makers to provide multi-service provisioning platforms that intelligently aggregate, route and switch cells or packets of information across key network layers and protocols, such as ATM, IP, Frames and SONET/SDH. "Few semiconductor manufacturers in the world have process and transceiver (TRANSmitter reCEIVER) An electronic device or circuit that transmits and receives analog or digital signals. It comes in many forms; for example, a transponder on a satellite, a network adapter in the computer or the circuits in a cellphone. technology sufficient to support the high performance of the Onex iTAP devices. With its excellence in technology, IBM was at the top of our list," said Phil Nyborg, president of Onex Communications. "Onex is confident that as a result of this technology relationship with a world class supplier like IBM, our customers can depend on Onex as a reliable source of high performance components." |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion