Vitesse Introduces the Industry's First Sixteen Drive JBOD Integrated Circuit; Targeted at the Exploding Storage Area Network (SAN) Market.Business Editors & High Tech WritersCAMARILLO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 31, 2000 Vitesse Semiconductor Corporation (NASDAQ NASDAQ in full National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations U.S. market for over-the-counter securities. Established in 1971 by the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD), NASDAQ is an automated quotation system that reports on :VTSS VTSS Vehicle Theft Security System VTSS Vancouver Technical Secondary School ) today introduced the highly integrated VSC VSC Vehicle Stability Control VSC Vermont State Colleges (Waterbury, Vermont) VSC Vessel Safety Check (USCG Auxilliary) VSC Vehicle Skid Control VSC Vermont Service Center 7148 integrated circuit (IC) containing all the functionality needed to implement an entire sixteen drive 1Gb/s Fibre Channel Arbitrated Loop (FC-AL (Fibre Channel-Arbitrated Loop) See Fibre Channel. FC-AL - Fibre Channel-Arbitrated Loop. ) JBOD (Just a Bunch Of Disks) A group of hard disks in a computer that are not set up as any type of RAID configuration. They are just a bunch of disks. JBOD - Just a Bunch Of Disks subsystem. A managed JBOD can be implemented by adding the Vitesse SSC SSC Secondary School Certificate SSC Standard Systems Center (USAF) SSC State Services Commission (New Zealand) SSC Swedish Space Corporation SSC Salem State College (Massachusetts) 100 Fibre Channel Enclosure Management Controller running Vitesse's embedded firmware. The VSC7148/SSC100 chipset provides an unprecedented level of diagnostics and fault isolation in an easy-to-use, highly integrated system solution. (Details pictured in diagram located at www.vitesse.com/news/053100.htm) The VSC7148 distributes all the high-speed serial signals to the disk drives via sixteen port bypass circuits (PBCs). Two host ports are implemented with two pairs of FibreTimer(TM) clock recovery units (CRUs) which can be individually configured as either repeaters or retimers to trade-off signal quality for latency. To ease system design, the SSC100 communicates with the VSC7148 through an I2C I2C Inter-Integrated Circuit I2C Intelligent Interface Controller I2C Intelligent Controller serial interface to provide complete device status, configuration, and interrupt handling to the host. An auxiliary set of PBCs implement a second internal loop to provide isolated access to any device while the rest of the system is operating normally. This "Snoop Loop(TM)" enables the SSC100 to run diagnostics on any drive while the other drives are accessed by external FC-AL hosts without interruption. "The VSC7148 demonstrates Vitesse's ability to provide highly integrated, leading-edge CMOS (Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor) Pronounced "c-moss." The most widely used integrated circuit design. It is found in almost every electronic product from handheld devices to mainframes. devices and sophisticated system solutions to our customers," said Tom Brokaw, senior product marketing manager in the SAN Products Group. "By leveraging our physical layer expertise with our enclosure management knowledge, we are able to offer innovative chipsets that are way ahead of the competition. The VSC7148 is only the beginning of the unique product offerings we will bring to the SAN marketplace." The high level of integration in the VSC7148 provides extremely advanced diagnostics and fault isolation when used with the SSC100. Existing enterprise-class storage systems indicate when a fault has occurred within the system but cannot, in general, isolate this fault down to the individual disk drive or component causing the problem. Additional debugging is required on the part of the user. The VSC7148/SSC100 chipset allows fault isolation down to the lowest component level to reduce downtime and support costs, and leads to higher data availability. The VSC7148/SSC100 chipset, when running the Vitesse firmware, provides a complete, easy-to-use solution for the most demanding applications. "Having a product like the VSC7148/SSC100 chipset allows our customers to reduce time-to-market for their Fibre Channel storage designs," said Brokaw. "The high level of integration reduces the total number of devices needed to successfully implement a 1Gb/s architecture to one device. Our customers are using the VSC7148 to reduce design cycles, R&D costs, and introduce new products to the storage market in record time, while supporting mission critical diagnostic features required by high availability applications," concluded Brokaw. The VSC7148 is packaged in a 256 BGA (Ball Grid Array) A popular surface mount chip package that uses a grid of solder balls as its connectors. Available in plastic and ceramic varieties, BGA is noted for its compact size, high lead count and low inductance, which allows lower voltages to be used. and is priced at $43.75 in quantities of 1000. Samples will be available in July, with production quantities scheduled for August. Reference designs, design-in-guides, and evaluation boards are available. The VSC7148 is also supported through an API within industry leading enclosure management Software Development Kit (SDK) targeted at the SSC100. Vitesse Semiconductor Corporation is the leading designer and supplier of semiconductors for the communication equipment manufacturers of next generation DWDM (Dense WDM) The term given to wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) when significantly more channels were being added. Since WDM is increasingly more "dense" all the time, both terms are used synonymously. See WDM. DWDM - wavelength division multiplexing and optical networking, as well as storage area networking ICs and enclosure management products that monitor and communicate critical reliability and availability information. Vitesse has been a primary developer of Fibre Channel technology and a contributor to the NCITS See ITI. X3T11 Fibre Channel committee, and the Fibre Channel Industry Association (FCIA FCIA See: Foreign Credit Insurance Association ). The company's products address the product needs of Core, Access and Enterprise network equipment manufacturers who demand a combination of high speed, high complexity and low power dissipation. Vitesse has headquarters in Camarillo, Calif., and manufactures volume ICs at its two fabrication facilities in Camarillo and Colorado Springs. Company/product information can be found on the Web at www.vitesse.com. |
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