Intel Introduces Industry's First 66 MHz PCI-to-PCI Bridge Chips

Greater Speed Provides Increased Throughput in Data-Driven Applications

SAN JOSE, Calif., May 20, 1998 -- At the PC Developers' Expo in San Jose, Calif., Intel today announced the industry's first 66-MHz PCI-to-PCI bridge chips. These chips, which are used on motherboards and add-in cards, will allow a system designer to increase data throughput in a variety of data intensive server, workstation and high-end PC applications including networking and data storage. The new 66-MHz bridges, the 21150-BC and 21154-BC, will be available in a 32- and 64-bit versions and are PCI Local Bus Rev 2.1 Compliant.

These new chips are additions to the line of industry-leading PCI bridge chips recently acquired by Intel from Digital Equipment Corporation. The 21150-BC and 21154-BC will comply with the Advanced Configuration Power Interface (ACPI) and PCI Bus Power Management Interface specifications. Intel's PCI-to-PCI bridge chips support power management and provide capabilities required for Microsoft certification for the next releases of the Microsoft Windows* and Windows NT* operating systems.

"With the introduction of the 66-MHz 21150-BC and 21154-BC chips, the fastest throughput bridge chips available, Intel now provides customers with a solution for the most demanding applications." said Matt Theall, PCI Bridge product marketing manager, Intel Corporation. "In addition, these new chips are derived from Intel PCI-to-PCI bridge technology currently used in a wide range of applications, so customers gain the added benefit of proven performance and interoperability for building future generations of systems."

Flexibility, Extended Capacity
The new products also provide users flexibility and choice as they operate at the same frequency on both the primary and secondary interfaces or with the secondary at half the frequency of the primary interface.

PCI-to-PCI bridge chips extend I/O support capability by enabling motherboard designers to exceed the four-slot PCI bus limitation for PCI devices and option cards. Each PCI-to-PCI bridge chip added to the motherboard creates a new PCI bus to support additional PCI slots or devices. A PCI-to-PCI bridge also enables adapter card designers to increase overcome the single load limitation of the PCI Specification by providing an independent PCI bus on the adapter card, to which as many as nine devices can be added.

Price, Availability
The 21150 and 21154 chips are priced at $22.70 and $38.60 in 1,000-unit quantities respectively. Samples will be available in June and October 1998 with volume shipments scheduled for August and November 1998 respectively.

Representatives from Intel's PCI Bridge Group will be available to answer questions about the new 66-MHz bridges at the Intel booth #302 at the PC Developers' Expo in San Jose, Calif., May 20-21.

* Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.