New Multi-Ported System Architecture Allows Corollary OEMs to Develop 8-CPU Pentium Pro Systems.

IRVINE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 13, 1996--Corollary, Inc., developers of the industry-leading multiprocessing architecture, C-bus(R)II, has announced what many observers believe will become the standard architecture for bus-based systems with more than four Pentium Pros.

This new multiprocessing technology, called Profusion(TM), employs a unique multi-ported system architecture which extends the capabilities of the Intel(R) four-way Pentium Pro design to systems of up to eight processors. The multi-ported design significantly increases processing performance while maintaining cost-effectiveness.

"While Pentium Pro delivers good built-in multiprocessing performance, it is firmly limited to four processors," said George White, president of Corollary. "We have seen a significant and growing market for systems that can scale with shrink-wrapped operating systems, like UnixWare(R) and Windows NT(TM), up to eight CPUs. Profusion, our new multi-ported system architecture, delivers the most efficient and economical solution to OEMs planning to address this market. It provides these system manufacturers with an effective way to broaden their product line and differentiate themselves from the growing number of vendors announcing very similar four-way Pentium Pro systems."

The Profusion chip set creates a "fusion" of three Pentium Pro buses and two main memory subsystems. This architecture allows a number of CPUs and I/O bridges independent high-speed access to shared, interleaved memory. Profusion dedicates two of the Pentium Pro buses for CPU attachment, with a limit of four processors per bus. For enhanced performance, the third Pentium Pro bus is used exclusively for I/O traffic. Each of the three Pentium Pro buses operates independently, with cache coherency maintained by an efficient, proprietary, cross-bus protocol.

While innovative in its implementation, the Profusion architecture follows industry standards. Specifically, the new architecture meets the Intel MPS 1.4 standard which enables Profusion-based systems to take full advantage of major industry shrink-wrapped SMP operating systems.

Corollary Profusion technology has been designed to complement clustering. While an eight-processor bus-based architecture delivers significantly higher performance than two loosely coupled four-processor clustered systems, clustering excels in fail-over applications. Profusion systems can be clustered together to achieve both high performance and high availability.

The Profusion chip set, the heart of Corollary's new multi- ported system architecture, consists of two 599-pin ball grid array integrated circuits: the Memory Access Controller (MAC) and Data Interface Buffer (DIB). The Profusion reference system supports eight Pentium Pros, 8GB of synchronous DRAM and up to 16 PCI slots.

About Corollary, Inc.

Pioneering advanced technology which extends the power of Intel-based processors, Corollary, Inc. is the industry's leading developer of multiprocessing products that cost effectively increase processing capacity and support for multiple users. The company offers board, chip-level and licensee options for multiprocessing hardware and communications products used worldwide by leading system OEMs and system integrators.

For more information about Corollary, Inc. and its products contact Corollary at 2802 Kelvin, Irvine, CA 92614; telephone: [phone]; fax: [phone]; WWW home page: http://www.corollary.com; e-mail: [e-mail].

CONTACT: Corollary, Inc.

Gail Michelsen, 714/250-4040

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Strategies, A Marketing Communications Corporation

Shay Stockdill, 714/957-8880 ext. 116

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