Communications Industry Leaders Join Development Of Advanced Switching* Specification To Complement PCI Express* Technology

SANTA CLARA, Calif., June 26, 2003 - The Advanced Switching* specification, the communications-oriented complement to the PCI Express* interconnect standard, has garnered further support with the addition of numerous industry-leading companies to the consortium developing the specification.

The new members of the consortium, called the Arapahoe Work Group, are Agere Systems, Alcatel, Altera Corp., EMC Corp., Fujitsu Limited, Hitachi Ltd., Huawei Technologies, National Semiconductor Corp., Nokia, Petalynx, OSE Systems, PMC-Sierra Inc., Siemens AG, Sun Microsystems Inc., Synopsys Inc., TeraChip Inc., Texas Instruments Inc., Vitesse Semiconductor Corp., Xyratex and ZettaCom Inc.

The Advanced Switching specification is a switched interconnect and data fabric technology based on the PCI Express architecture for joining components and system boards in low-to-midrange communications and embedded applications. The PCI Express architecture builds on the highly successful PCI standard, and was designed as the general-purpose chip-to-chip interconnect technology for the next decade.

"The participation of these companies reflects the momentum that has built around the Advanced Switching specification, positioning it for broad adoption," said Tim Parker, spokesperson for the Arapahoe Work Group and Intel Communications Group director of technology initiatives. "Their contributions will help frame a universally available switched interconnect and data fabric with the features, ecosystem support and cost efficiencies required by the communications industry to meet the demands arising from the convergence of computing and communications."

The new companies join existing members of the Arapahoe Work Group that include Accolade Technologies, Agilent Technologies Inc., AMD, Ample Communications, Banderacom, Cascade, Dell Computer Corp., Emulex Corp., Force Computers, IBM, Integrated Device Technology Inc., Intel Corporation, Internet Machines Corp., LSI Logic Corp., Marconi Corp., Marvell, Mellanox Technologies Ltd., Microsoft, Monta Vista, Network Appliance Inc., Pigeon Point Systems, PLX Technology Inc., QLogic Corp., QNX Software Systems, Qualis Inc., RadiSys, Sandburst Corp., SandCraft Inc., StarGen, TeraCross Inc. and Xilinx Inc.

Advanced Switching uses the same physical and link layers as the PCI Express architecture to achieve widespread interoperability and availability of technology. However, at the transaction layer, Advanced Switching is optimized to provide an array of specialized communications features, including high-availability functions, peer-to-peer and multicast networking, congestion and system management, scalability, and support for virtually any networking protocol. The optimized transaction layer provides the equipment developer extensive flexibility for designing value-added features into communications and embedded solutions.

Together, the complementary PCI Express and Advanced Switching technologies ensure mainstream, broadly available building blocks and tools that enable component and equipment makers to reuse technology across multiple products, reduce design costs and shorten the time it takes to get products to market.

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