Vitesse Introduces Industry's First 10 GbE LRM Chip Set; New Products Exceed Transmission Standard while Bringing Price Down for OEMs.

ANAHEIM, Calif. -- Vitesse Semiconductor Corporation (NASDAQ:VTSS) today introduced the industry's first complete chip set for the IEEE 802.3aq, 10GBASE-LRM (LRM) standard at the OFC/NFOEC conference. Vitesse's new chip set exceeds performance requirements defined by the standard while at the same time achieving a competitively low price point to enable module manufacturers to accelerate deployment of 10 Gigabit Ethernet serial transmission over all grades of low cost multimode fiber. The chip set is also supported by a complete module reference design, including hardware and firmware, significantly shortening the time to market for optical module OEMs. The new 10GBASE-LRM chip set will be showcased at OFC/NFOEC 2006, in the Corporate Village, Hall B 1166 and 1067 March 7-9.

"This chip set is the only one available that exceeds the standard with enough margin to satisfy the complete customer base," said Tony Conoscenti, Director of Marketing for the Network Products Division, Vitesse Semiconductor Corporation. "Not only does it surpass the performance bar, but it is half the price of competing solutions, making LRM optical modules an extremely cost competitive option for enterprise applications."

Bringing Cost-Effective 10 GbE to Legacy Multimode Fiber

Today's enterprise based data transmission is typically deployed over multi-mode fiber (MMF) at Ethernet data rates up to 1 Gbps (1 GbE). Future deployments require upgrading to 10 Gbps Ethernet (10 GbE) over the same installed fiber base. Optical signals transmitted through this installed base of fiber suffer from increasing levels of modal dispersion as the data rate increases, thereby limiting the maximum reach. The 10GBASE-LRM standard simplifies extended reach 10 GbE data transmission over legacy MMF by using just a single laser running at the full 10 Gbps data rate. This is accomplished by employing new electronic dispersion compensation (EDC) technology to compensate for the modal dispersion in multimode fiber, thereby enabling a new generation of low cost optical modules that will displace the more expensive and complex LX-4 modules. The demand to convert existing 1 GbE data links to 10 GbE rates has begun. This trend is projected to consume over one million ports per year by 2008.

Best in Class Technology

Vitesse's new 10 Gbps LRM chip set provides a best in class feature set that minimizes printed circuit board complexity and external component count thereby increasing performance and reliability while reducing costs for module manufacturers. Included in today's announcement are the following products:

Electronic Dispersion Compensation (EDC) - The VSC8238 provides equalization for the time varying modal dispersion encountered in multi-mode fiber. The combined multi-tap feed-forward equalizer (FFE) and decision feedback equalizer (DFE) architecture provides the best performing LRM EDC in the market and is the only device in its class that has demostrated the ability to provide 10GBASE-LX4 level performance. The VSC8238 is the first deployment of Viteese's EDC roadmap. Follow-on generation CMOS technology is in test now and will enable integration of the transceiver and EDC devices into one low cost integrated circuit.

XAUI Transceiver - The VSC8475 sets a new industry standard for low power XAUI SERDES at just 750mW. Designed for Xenpak/X2 module applications, the VSC8475 supports both LAN and WAN modes, is fully compliant to the IEEE 802.3ae standard and has a flexible interface to support legacy and future host-software requirements. The VSC8475 also exceeds WAN PHY requirements by providing extended SONET processing and jitter performance thereby eliminating the need for costly Ethernet Line Terminating Equipment.

Linear Transimpedance Amplifier - The VSC7878 is a 10 Gbps transimpedance amplifier (TIA), which provides the high linearity amplification required by EDC based receivers. The variable gain maintains the linear amplification of the input signals up to 2 mA while maintaining ultra low Total Harmonic Distortion (THD) and excellent Signal to Noise Ratios (SNR). The wide dynamic range of the VSC7878 ensures significant margin to the 10GBASE-LRM link budget for both sensitivity as well as overload. The VSC7878 is designed to enable very high optical receiver performance with either a PIN or an APD photo detector in low-cost TO-can format packaging.

Laser Driver - The VSC7981 is a highly integrated 10 Gbps DML driver that operates from a single 3.3 V supply to drive a 25 ohm laser with up to 80 mA of modulation and up to 100 mA of bias. The wide operating range of the VSC7981 enables it to be used with either Distributed FeedBack (DFB) lasers or Fabry-Perot (FP) lasers.

Photodiode - The VSC7756 is a new optical detector for 10 Gbps applications with a large diameter active area designed to capture a large percentage of the modes coming out of the fiber at the optical receiver. This capability, in tandem with a high operating bandwidth, is a key enabler for the successful implementation of EDC.

Price and Availability

The complete chipset is priced to enable 10GBASE-LRM to hit a volume price target below $300 per optical module required to accelerate deployment of this standard.

All products are available now, except the VSC8475, which will be available this summer. Evaluation boards for each IC product are also available.

For more information on Vitesse LRM technology and products, please go to www.vitesse.com.

About Vitesse

Vitesse designs, develops and markets a diverse portfolio of high-performance, cost-competitive semiconductor solutions for communications and storage networks worldwide. Engineering excellence and dedicated customer service distinguish Vitesse as an industry leader in Gigabit Ethernet LAN, Ethernet-over-SONET, Advanced Switching, Fibre Channel, Serial Attached SCSI, Optical Transport, and other applications. Vitesse innovation empowers customers to deliver superior products for Enterprise, Access, Metro, and Core applications. Additional company and product information is available at www.vitesse.com.