ALACRITECH ANNOUNCES GENERAL AVAILABILITY
OF ITS PATENTED TCP OFFLOAD AND iSCSI ASIC
Industry's
Top-Performing ASIC First to Market for OEM Integration in
Blade Servers and Storage Platforms
San Jose, Calif. — August 19, 2002 —
Alacritech®, Inc., the innovator of network accelerator solutions that enable
fast and efficient servers and storage systems, today announced the general
availability of its patented, third-generation TCP/IP offload engine (TOE) ASIC
(application-specific integrated circuit), the 1000x1 Internet Protocol Processor
(IPP). The Alacritech Gigabit Ethernet chip offers the industry's most advanced
design, achieving wire-speed throughput at less than 8% CPU utilization. Alacritech
now extends its Gigabit Ethernet product family to make its 1000x1 IPP ASIC
available for OEM integration in embedded applications such as blade servers,
IP storage switches, network-attached storage (NAS) appliances and storage subsystems.
Alacritech is the pioneer of TOE technology, and has designed its 1000x1 IPP ASIC to deliver the
most efficient server and storage traffic acceleration possible. The 1000x1
IPP uses Alacritech's patented SLIC (session layer interface card) Technology,
a data-path TCP offload technology, which enables the 1000x1 IPP ASIC to perform
the CPU-intensive data movement while host software handles TCP/IP connection
management and errors. The Alacritech third-generation IPP ASIC uses a patented
queue manager, custom VLIW protocol processors and programmable classification
engines to perform TCP/IP and iSCSI processing at full line rate. Alacritech
has a suite of software drivers available, including drivers for beta versions
of Windows .Net, WHQL-certified Windows 2000 drivers, Linux 2.4 drivers, and
a driver development kit for other operating environments.
With today's announcement, Alacritech addresses OEM customer demands for a high-performance TOE and iSCSI
ASIC with a small footprint for easy integration in blade servers, IP storage
switches, NAS appliances and storage subsystems," said Barry Haaser, vice president
of marketing, Alacritech, Inc. "Our silicon supports the diverse requirements
of computer and storage vendors for TOE that can deliver wire-speed iSCSI and
a scalable architecture to 10 Gigabit Ethernet and beyond."
Alacritech's SLIC Technology® Enables the Industry's Highest Performance
Alacritech's 1000x1 IPP ASIC uses the company's patented, standards-compliant
SLIC Technology to offload network processing from software to the chip itself
to achieve outstanding performance in servers, NAS and iSCSI storage devices.
Unlike processor-based and network processor-based TCP offload architectures,
the Alacritech IPP is the first state machine-based hardware built specifically
for TCP offload. This advanced architecture eliminates the need to design complex
hardware for rare error occurrences, leaving the non-CPU-intensive TCP tasks
on the host CPU. Alacritech's data-path TCP offload approach enables the smallest
footprint and the most power-efficient design.
"Alacritech provides proven ASICs for offloading and accelerating TCP/IP and iSCSI in servers and
storage platforms," said Jag Bolaria, senior analyst, The Linley Group. "The
availability of Alacritech TOE chips and accompanying software gives computer
and storage manufacturers a powerful solution to reduce the time to market for
their next-generation systems. We expect the IPP to be a snow plow for the IP
storage market."
Alacritech's 1000x1 Internet Protocol Processor Features
- Third-generation,
single-chip TCP accelerator
- Industry's lowest-power
accelerator at 1.5 watts uses no heat sink in most applications
- 31 x 31 mm 405
ball PBGA package optimized for server, iSCSI and NAS applications
- 64-bit, 66 MHz
PCI host interface
- GMII PHY interface
- 72-bit SDRAM interface
- Offloads TCP/IP
and iSCSI processing to silicon
- Accelerates network
performance to full wire speed
- Reduces system
overhead and network latency
- Fully interoperable
with industry-standard hubs, routers, and switches
- Provides link
aggregation and failover using standard Ethernet techniques.
Availability
Alacritech is shipping a complete line of Gigabit Ethernet and Fast Ethernet
accelerator products with its IPP ASICs onboard. Alacritech's 1000x1 Internet
Protocol Processor is now available for $80 for volume purchases.
About Alacritech,
Inc.
Alacritech, Inc. was founded by Larry Boucher, creator of the SCSI interface,
to deliver upon his vision of eliminating the server bottleneck. Today, Alacritech
is the innovator of network accelerator solutions that enable fast and efficient
servers and storage systems. Alacritech's complete line of high-performance
server and storage accelerators is based on the company's patented SLIC (session-layer
interface card) Technology to optimize the performance of servers, network-attached
storage and iSCSI storage devices. SLIC Technology is the first fully compatible
and scalable technology to offload network protocol processing, primarily TCP/IP,
from software on the host system to silicon on the adapter. Based in San Jose,
California, Alacritech is privately held. Alacritech is a member of the 10 Gigabit
Ethernet Alliance and the Storage Networking Association (SNIA), and a founding
member of the SNIA IP Storage Forum. For more information about Alacritech and
its products, please visit the company's Web site at www.alacritech.com.
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Alacritech, the Alacritech
logo, SLIC Technology, and the SLIC Technology logo are registered trademarks
of Alacritech, Inc. in the United States. All other trademarks are property
of their respective owners.
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