TRADE NEWS: Agilent Technologies' 4 Gb/s Fibre Channel Controller Sets Performance Record for Storage Networking Applications.

PALO ALTO, Calif. -- Industry's First Quad-Port Controller with Native PCI-Express Bus Exceeds 1.3 Million IOPS and Delivers 2.7 GB/s Bandwidth

Agilent Technologies Inc. (NYSE:A) today announced that its 4 Gb/s Fibre Channel controller IC with PCI-Express for storage networking applications is the industry's fastest. Agilent's seventh-generation Tachyon series of Fibre Channel controllers, the QX4 HPFC-6400B, is the industry's first quad-port controller with native PCI-Express and the first to exceed 1.3 million input/output per second (IOPS) at 512-byte data payload and 2.7 GB/s in bandwidth.

The industry-leading Tachyon series features an eight-lane PCI-Express system bus that supports four times the bandwidth of prior PCI-X systems and up to 3.2 GB/s overall bandwidth. The QX4 offers storage OEMs breakthrough performance and port density in a single chip.

"Agilent was the first company to introduce a 4 Gb/s Fibre Channel controller, and now we're the first to introduce a 4 Gb/s controller featuring an eight-lane PCI-Express system bus," said Erik Ottem, marketing director of Agilent's I/O Solutions Division. "Our seventh-generation Tachyon series of Fibre Channel controllers deliver record-breaking IOPS performance and exceptional bandwidth capabilities, while retaining API compatibility with Agilent's complete family of Tachyon Fibre Channel controllers."

To achieve the 2.7 GB/s bandwidth performance, the Tachyon QX4 was configured as a host server/initiator that transmits and receives 4 Gb/s video and data through a 4G (4 Gb/s) fabric switch. The configuration uses Agilent 4 Gb/s SFP (small form factor pluggable) fiber-optic transceivers connected to four target mode servers with two Agilent DX4+ FC controllers on each server. The 1.3 million IOPS was achieved in the same configuration, powered by 3.6 GHz Xeon processor running Agilent's test software and measuring 512-byte initiator reads.

Several data-intensive applications on the market such as video streaming, image processing and backup that require high-throughput will benefit from 4 Gb/s link speeds. Optimized for storage arrays, Agilent's new quad-port Fibre Channel controller with PCI-Express provides the industry's highest performance for RAID storage subsystems, virtualization devices and intelligent storage routers. The Tachyon QX4's single chip, quad-port design delivers enhanced reliability and reduced development time, costs and risk for storage networking OEMs. It also enables them to leverage their existing investment in 4 Gb/s Fibre Channel storage solutions. The Agilent Tachyon HPFC-6400B is fully backward compatible with existing 2 Gb/s and 1 Gb/s Fibre Channel SANs.

A white paper explaining Tachyon's scaleable architecture and its compatibility with PCI-Express is available for download at www.agilent.com/view/storage.

U.S. Pricing and Availability

Samples of the 4 Gb/s QX4 HPFC-6400B Tachyon QX4 are available now for select customers through Agilent's direct sales channel. Production volumes will be available in April 2005. Pricing is available on request.

Agilent 4 Gb Fibre Channel Solutions

Agilent is a leading supplier of 4 Gb Fibre Channel component, board and test solutions. No other vendor offers protocol, physical layer and fiber-optic components combined with leading-edge signal and protocol testing. More than half of all storage-networked arrays use Agilent components. More information is available at www.agilent.com/view/storage.

About Agilent Technologies

Agilent Technologies Inc. (NYSE:A) is a global technology leader in communications, electronics, life sciences and chemical analysis. The company's 28,000 employees serve customers in more than 110 countries. Agilent had net revenue of $7.2 billion in fiscal year 2004. Information about Agilent is available on the Web at www.agilent.com.

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