Symbios Logic announces industry's first hard disk drive controller with Ultra2 SCSI performance; New hard disk drive controller provides industry leading performance of 80 MB s SCSI transfer rate, 125 MB s burst buffer bandwidth and 320 Mbit s disk transfer rate.

FORT COLLINS, COLO.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 23, 1996-- Continuing to lead the market in data transfer rates and innovations in drive electronics technology, Symbios Logic Inc. announces the industry's first headerless disk drive data controller with an integrated Ultra2 SCSI interface. The new SYM201F40 drive controller from Symbios Logic offers the fastest data SCSI transfer rate in the industry at 80 MB/s and a burst buffer bandwidth rate at 125 MB/s. It also will allow data to be received from the media/read-write channel at 320 Mbit/sec and continue to scale up from there -- faster than any other product on the market today. This new hard disk drive controller provides the higher bandwidth performance and data retrieval rates that disk drive manufacturers are requiring from their suppliers for the storage intensive needs of today's market.

"Symbios Logic's drive controller architecture is designed for the next several generations of high performance disk drives and is committed to continually exceed industry data transfer and Non-Return-to Zero (NRZ) rates," said Rich Lautzenheiser, strategic marketing director for peripheral products at Symbios Logic. "The planned line of drive controllers, starting with the integrated Ultra2 SCSI LVD interface, is consistent with Symbios Logic's commitment to support SCSI technology. By committing to extend the life and functionality of SCSI technology, Symbios Logic is allowing its major OEM customers to gain significant return on investment while preparing them for the next generation of serial drive interfaces."

The SYM201F40 is comprised of a SCSI Protocol Controller with integrated Low Voltage Differential (LVD) transceiver technology, a Host DMA/Multi-Context Engine, a Buffer Manager, a Disk Formatter, a Data ECC and a Microprocessor Interface. Each of these major function blocks are designed with Symbios Logic's core methodology to facilitate integration with embedded memory and other logic, such as customer ASIC logic, microprocessors, and servo/spin functions.

Utilizing LVD transceiver technology coupled with the Wide Ultra2 SCSI interface, the SYM201F40 achieves data transfer rates up to 80 MB/s. Symbios Logic's implementation of LVD transceiver technology, called LVDlink(Tm), provides the signal integrity and resulting data reliability expected from high voltage differential signaling but at a much lower solution cost. The SYM201F40 also supports greater device connectivity and longer cables with LVDlink, allowing transfers over distances that once required the added expense of external high-power differential transceivers.

The LVDlink transceivers also: reduce the power needed to drive the bus, lower the amplitude of noise reflections, and allow for the higher transmission frequencies.

LVDlink provides a means of increasing the transfer rate for parallel data transfer without the need to implement a serial interface. The new LVDlink feature contributes to lowering the cost, increasing the throughput of new drive products and leveraging the current investment of SCSI technology.

The SYM201F40 provides protection for all critical data passed through or stored in the disk environment. All controller data stored in buffer memory is protected by vertical parity. The user data is protected by SCSI bus parity, a logical sector seeded Cyclical Redundancy Check (CRC), and/or Error Correction Code (ECC) generated and checked in every phase of the data transfer from the system interface to the storage media and back to the system interface. The SYM201F40 is the only controller in the industry to provide this level of protection for mission critical data in the storage environment.

The controller ECC capability has been enhanced to support characteristics of magnetic resonance heads and has maintained a performance level to allow on-the-fly correction at the full NRZ data rate. The code provides a triple burst correction capability with a maximum correction span of 15 bytes. The mis-correction capability is enhanced with CRC, and extra features, such as error logging and flexible correction burst length limiting, to enhance the testing and manufacturing of the system.

The SYM201F40 complies with SCSI -1, -2, -3 standards and supports all combinations of narrow and wide Fast, Ultra, Ultra2 interfaces. The processor interface supports Motorola, Intel, Hitachi, Texas Instruments, and RISC style interfaces.

The SYM201F40 HDD controller is offered as either a standard platform to be used as a standard product or can be modified to include a customer's intellectual property to create a value-added product. The Ultra and Ultra2 SCSI optimized versions of the drive controller are available in 144 and 176 TQFP packages. The SYM201F40 is used as a base for Symbios Logic's FC-AL and SSA high performance disk controllers. Engineering samples of the new drive controller are currently available and production quantities are planned for late 1996. A firmware development system, including a sophisticated disk emulator, is also available.

For over fifteen years, Symbios Logic has been a leader in advancing drive electronics technology, developing many of the industry's ground breaking innovations. With the Company's vast experience as a leading supplier of storage solutions to original equipment manufactures (OEMs) and servicing the ASIC needs of disk drive manufactures, Symbios Logic has become a premier provider of drive electronics products and technology. Currently the Company holds a 15% share of the drive electronics data controller market and plans to continue to leverage its strong technical expertise by developing and bringing to market industry leading disk, tape, and optical drive data controller technology.

Symbios Logic creates storage management and peripheral connection solutions and provides a full spectrum of products for these solutions, including integrated circuits, boards and subsystems as well as supporting software drivers and utilities. The Company focuses on developing technology partnerships with its customers and vendors, including original equipment manufacturers and resellers in the networked computing, peripherals and communications markets. Formed in 1995, Symbios Logic is a wholly owned, independently operated subsidiary of Hyundai Electronics America. The Company has a total worldwide employment of 2,400 with operations in Wichita, Kansas, Fort Collins (headquarters) and Colorado Springs, Colorado, plus 20 worldwide sales offices. For further information, please call 1-800-856-3093 or visit our Web site at www.symbios.com. Our email address for product information is: [e-mail]. -0-

Symbios Logic, and LVDlink are trademarks of Symbios Logic Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

CONTACT: Lynette Szantho OR Robert Collins

Symbios Logic Inc. Sterling Hager, Inc.

970-226-9674 617-259-1400 x234