Vixel Corporation Names Bryan E. Yunker Vice President of Product Development; Yunker Brings Extensive Advanced Communication and Engineering Management Experience in Product Development and OEM Relationships.

BROOMFIELD, Colo.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 23, 1996--Vixel Corporation, a manufacturer of high-speed fiber optic communications links for Fibre Channel, ATM and Ethernet applications, today announced the appointment of Bryan E. Yunker, 37, as Vice President of Product Development.

Yunker will report to Greg Olbright, president and CEO of Vixel, and will be responsible for a staff of 28 engineers and technicians.

Yunker joins Vixel from his position as Director of Engineering for Fibre Channel physical layer products at Western Digital Corporation, a $3-billion manufacturer of hard disk drives and computer connectivity products, where he managed a 15-person product development team. There, he was responsible for the development of the 1-Gbaud Fibre Channel HUB1063, MIM1063G series media interface modules, and the OE1063 and CE1063 optical and electrical converters. He also led the successful development of that company's first PCI bus-based Fibre Channel Host Bus Adapter Demonstrator, and satisfied their ISO 9001 certification requirements in the product development area.

Before Western Digital, Yunker served as Design Group Leader at Modulinc Solutions, successfully driving the product development of the MIM266 Fibre Channel fiber optic Media Interface Module, which has been qualified in the Sun Microsystems SPARC Storage Array, and in the Hewlett-Packard Polaris switch.

"We are extremely fortunate to have Bryan at Vixel. He fills a key position in our management team, and will be invaluable in helping us grow a world-class product development staff focused on advancing physical-layer optical and electrical interconnect for the data and telecom industries," said Greg Olbright, president and CEO of Vixel Corporation.

Yunker views the creation of a new and advanced technology culture as his principal challenge in Vixel. "A company-wide engineering culture will be the basis for a significant contribution to the marketplace in term of products and technology." He added that this requires identifying the common elements between the communications standards and matching them with cost-effective designs.

"We expect Bryan's proven skills in developing lab relationships with very major OEM customers, and his ability to attract highly skilled analog design and optical design staff, to be a major contribution to Vixel," said Olbright. "His experience will facilitate the implementation of our post-acquisition plans."

Earlier this month, Vixel Corporation acquired Western Digital's Corporation Fibre Channel Products Unit, incorporating the unit's established product lines with its own. The acquired Western Digital product families include Fibre Channel modules in quarter and full speed versions (MIM1063G), hot-pluggable 1063 MBaud Fibre Channel (OE1063SW), and Fibre Channel hubs (HUB1063).

"The combined resources of Western Digital, Seattle, and Vixel, Broomfield, engineering staffs has merged technology, research-driven culture and mature product development and customer relationship," pointed out Yunker.

Bryan Yunker earned his BSEE from Washington State University in 1981.

Vixel Corporation, founded in 1991, is a recognized leader in the development of the LASEARRAYs and LASEARRAY-based fiber optic interconnect products. Headquartered in Broomfield, Colo. in a 22,000-sq. ft. facility -- including a 5,000-sq. ft. laser diode fabrication plant -- Vixel is a developer and manufacturer of high-speed fiber optic transceiver products (trademarked VixeLinks) for interconnecting digital telephone switches, premises switches/hubs/routers, workstations, file servers and supercomputers. Most importantly, Vixel's fiber optic transceiver products operate across a wide range of standardized platforms including: Ethernet, Fibre Channel, Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM), Scaleable Coherent Interface (SCI), and High Performance Parallel Interface (HiPPI). In 1996, Vixel acquired Western Digital Corporation's Fibre Channel products unit, based in Lynnwood, WA., incorporating its established product lines into its own. The acquired product families include Fibre Channel modules in quarter (MIM266G) and full speed (MIM1063G) versions, hot-pluggable 1063 Mbps O/E converter (OE1063SW), and Fibre Channel hubs (HUB1063). -0-

Note to Editors: Photo of Bryan E. Yunker is available upon request.

CONTACT: Vixel Corporation

Alan Iguchi, 303/460-0700

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The Benjamin Group Inc.

Gary Quackenbush/Alex Braun, 408/559-6090 or

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