TRADE NEWS: Agilent Technologies Introduces Entry-Level 4 Gb/s PCI Express Fibre Channel Controller.PALO ALTO, Calif. -- Dual-Port Tachyon tachyon (tăk`ēŏn'), hypothetical elementary particle that travels only at speeds exceeding that of light. According to the theory of relativity, the speed of light is the limiting velocity for all ordinary material particles. Controller Offers High Performance, Host-Friendly Features for OEMs Addressing Cost-Sensitive Small- and Medium-Sized Businesses Agilent Technologies Inc. (NYSE NYSE See: New York Stock Exchange :A) today announced the dual-port Tachyon DE4, a cost-competitive entry-level 4 Gb/s Fibre Channel controller IC that offers the exceptional performance capabilities inherent in Agilent's hardware-accelerated Tachyon controller family. The Tachyon DE4 includes a four-lane native PCI Express bus and host-friendly features, making it perfect for cost-sensitive storage systems used in small- and medium-sized business (SMB (1) (Small to Medium-sized Business) Also called "SME" (small to medium-sized enterprise), it refers to companies that are larger than the small office/home office (SOHO), but not huge. ) environments. The entry-level Tachyon DE4 expands the market for Fibre Channel, bringing its low latency and guaranteed data delivery to OEMs addressing the SMB market where iSCSI is perceived as the only low-cost tiered-storage solution. The Tachyon DE4 (Agilent HPFC-6700A) is targeted at RAID disk arrays, storage subsystems, virtualization An umbrella term for enhancing a computer's ability to do work. Following are the ways virtualization is used. Hardware Virtualization Partitioning the computer's memory into separate and isolated "virtual machines" simulates multiple machines within one physical computer. devices, and network infrastructure devices such as routers, bridges, intelligent switches/network appliances and host/server applications that are migrating to PCI (1) (Payment Card Industry) See PCI DSS. (2) (Peripheral Component Interconnect) The most widely used I/O bus (peripheral bus). Express-based architectures and Fibre Channel connectivity. "Offering a low-cost dual-port PCI Express Fibre Channel controller enables our storage OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) The rebranding of equipment and selling it. The term initially referred to the company that made the products (the "original" manufacturer), but eventually became widely used to refer to the organization that buys the products and customers to achieve new levels of price and performance, as well as leverage their existing Fibre Channel infrastructure and software drivers," said Erik Ottem, marketing director of the I/O (Input/Output) The transfer of data between the CPU and a peripheral device. Every transfer is an output from one device and an input to another. See PC input/output. I/O - Input/Output Solutions Division in Agilent's Semiconductor Products Group. "The DE4's exceptional combination of performance and features at an economical price meets the needs of the rapidly growing entry-level storage array segment, enabling OEMs to combine proven Fibre Channel technology for SAN connect with SATA (Serial ATA) A serial version of the ATA (IDE) interface, which has been the de facto standard hard disk interface for desktop PCs for more than two decades. The original Parallel ATA (PATA) interface was launched in 1986. drives for cost-effective storage." The Tachyon DE4 provides very high performance for an entry-level 4 Gb/s Fibre Channel controller, achieving 1.3 GB/s throughput and greater than 500,000 input/output per second (IOPS IOPS Input/Output Per Second IOPS Input/Output Operations Per Second (server performance measurement) IOPS International Organization of Pension Supervisors IOPS Information Operations Planning System IOPS Internet Official Protocol Standards ) performance. The DE4 supports 4 Gb/s data transfer rates and is fully backward-compatible with existing 2 Gb/s and 1 Gb/s Fibre Channel applications. Although lower in cost than other Tachyon controllers, the HPFC-6700A includes advanced features such as a native four-lane PCI-Express bus, multi-DMA that enables system cache mirroring with no CPU CPU in full central processing unit Principal component of a digital computer, composed of a control unit, an instruction-decoding unit, and an arithmetic-logic unit. overhead, and host-friendly features including a ROM (read-only memory See ROM. (storage) Read-Only Memory - (ROM) A type of data storage device which is manufactured with fixed contents. In its most general sense, the term might be used for any storage system whose contents cannot be altered, such as a gramophone record or a printed book; ) interface, providing customers with the ability to store up to 1 MB of boot code and other data structures in non-volatile memory. Agilent provides an extensive API tool set through its Tachyon software development kit (rev. 4.0), including sample drivers to enable new customers to quickly develop software solutions. The Tachyon DE4 also supports the T-10 Standard "Protection Information" via ADIF ADIF Administrador de Infraestructuras Ferroviarias (Spanish) ADIF Audio Data Interchange Format ADIF Amateur Data Interchange Format Specification (Advanced Data Integrity Field). ADIF provides robust CRC-based data protection that can span both the PCI-Express and Fibre Channel Interface to assure complete data protection in the I/O data path. A white paper explaining the Tachyon DE4's multi-DMA feature is available for download at www.agilent.com/view/storage. U.S. Pricing and Availability Samples of the 4 Gb/s HPFC-6700A Tachyon DE4 are available now through Agilent's direct sales channel. Production volumes are expected in the first quarter of 2006. 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/fc. About Agilent Technologies Agilent Technologies Inc. (NYSE:A) is the world's premier measurement company and a 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. NOTE TO EDITORS: Please direct reader inquiries to Agilent Semiconductor Products Group at 800-235-0312, or e-mail us at semiconductorsupport@agilent.com. Further technology, corporate citizenship and executive news is available on the Agilent news site at www.agilent.com/go/news. |
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