Vitesse Declares Success with Second Generation OC-48 SAR and Traffic Management Engine -- PaceMaker 2.5.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

CAMARILLO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 11, 2001

Vitesse Semiconductor Corporation (Nasdaq:VTSS) announces general sampling of the PaceMaker 2.5(TM), the pin-compatible successor to the PaceMaker 2.4 OC-48 Traffic Management and SAR engine available since 1Q'01. In addition, a leading Vitesse PaceMaker customer comments on the effectiveness of the PaceMaker family for a core networking application.

"Networking manufacturers rapidly embraced PaceMaker 2.4 as it was the first-available integrated OC-48 traffic management and SAR solution," said Dr. Raif Onvural, vice president of Vitesse's Multi-Service Solutions Group. "Today we are happy that leading customers in various market segments -- including multi-service core switches, core routers, and metro switches -- are using and endorsing the PaceMaker family. We look forward to continuing to serve them and other OEMs by providing advances in features, throughput and integration levels in our upcoming products."

As with the PaceMaker 2.4, the pin-compatible PaceMaker 2.5 allows for simultaneous independent control of up to 256k traffic flows. Traffic policing, scheduling and shaping are provided to allow equipment and network designers to balance congestion control with quality of service and class of service (CoS) constraints for a variety of access, metro and core network applications. PaceMaker 2.5 adds several new features, including Weighted Random Early Detect (W-RED) and Deficit Round Robin (DRR) scheduling. PaceMaker 2.5 also adds support of per-logical-port backpressure from the switch fabric interface, which maximizes system throughput.

The PaceMaker 2.5 is designed to work in combination with Vitesse framer/mapper devices, switch fabric components, and the Vitesse Monitor 4.8 (VSC2450), an Operations, Administration and Maintenance (OAM) device with protection switching capability. Together, the Vitesse components provide system designers a complete end-to-end chip level solution for next generation Internet infrastructure equipment.

The Vitesse PaceMaker/Monitor combination provides the industry's only two chip solution for OC-48 ATM line card applications. The PaceMaker and Monitor devices have been developed at Vitesse's Research Triangle Park, North Carolina location.

Steve Noyes, vice president of Engineering for Equipe Communications, commented, "We looked for external silicon solutions to the OC-48 traffic management and SAR requirements of our E3200 Multilayer Optical Onramp blades. Vitesse was the farthest along with PaceMaker -- in product availability, flow capacity and support of mixed traffic types. We believe that using the PaceMaker has given us a significant time to market advantage in our development of the OC-48 traffic management in the E3200. Vitesse has worked closely with us all along the way, supporting our engineering and project management demands virtually flawlessly."

Onvural added, "Vitesse partners, such as Equipe, are building telephony grade products for facilities-based carriers, and so have had a number of firm requirements for traffic management circuitry. The product has to be readily available, it has to have a robust telephony grade feature set, and it needs to scale -- both up and down. The PaceMaker products have been available since March and support mixed packet/cell traffic, as well as quality and service guarantees on up to 256k flows. The PaceMaker design also allows customers to easily scale down for certain metro and edge applications by reducing the amount of external memory used, meaning less power, cost and real estate required."

PaceMaker 2.5 interfaces to the outside world via two independent standard UTOPIA3 or POSPHY3 ports and a 32-bit 66Mhz PCI interface for connection to a host CPU. The 756-pin ABGA device is available now and is priced at $1010 in quantities of 1,000.

Vitesse Semiconductor Corporation is a leading designer and supplier of innovative, high-performance integrated circuits (ICs) and optical modules used in next generation networking and optical communications equipment. The Company's products address the needs of Enterprise, Access, Metro, Core, and Optical Transport network equipment manufacturers who demand a robust combination of high-speed, high-service delivery and low-power dissipation in their products. In concert with its broad communications product portfolio, Vitesse also develops ICs for storage area networking and enclosure management. Vitesse is headquartered in Camarillo, Calif., and operates two fabrication facilities: one in Camarillo and one in Colorado Springs, Colo. Company and product information can be found on the web at www.vitesse.com or is available by calling 1-800-VITESSE.