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PLX Technology Introduces New HyperTransport Bridging Chip

PLX Technology, a leading supplier of high-speed interconnect silicon to the communications industry, has announced the industry's fastest HyperTransport bridging chip. The new PLX PowerDrive HT7520 HyperTransport Tunnel-to-Dual PCI-X Bridge provides unprecedented interconnection capability to communications and storage-system applications. Featuring two separate 133MHz PCI-X bridges, a HyperTransport link transmitting 16-bit data at 800MHz Double Data Rate (DDR) for up to 6.4 GB/s bandwidth, and a HyperTransport tunnel that features a second HyperTransport link, the PowerDrive HT7520 is one of the most powerful devices in its class.

Offering an 800 MHz DDR link speed, which is the highest-performance link available for current HyperTransport embedded applications, the PowerDrive HT7520 is designed to deliver unsurpassed bandwidth to other HyperTransport technology devices, such as network, graphics and security processors. The front-end HyperTransport interface enables a configurable 16-bit wide communication path to the system host. At 800 MHz, this front-end interface delivers the highest bandwidth available in its class at 6.4 GB/s. The back-end HyperTransport interface offers a configurable 8-bit wide communication path to a downstream device, offering up to 3.2 GB/s of bandwidth. The PowerDrive HT7520's high speed and bandwidth capacity eliminates I/O bottlenecks, the main performance limitation in switches, routers, and storage servers.

"The PowerDrive HT7520 frees today's communication systems from performance limitations while leveraging the current PCI infrastructure," said Kimkinyona Fox, product marketing manager at PLX. "The device allows backward compatibility of existing PCI hardware and software with the added benefit of supporting next-generation I/O bandwidth and performance requirements."

"PLX enjoys an industry-wide reputation for delivering powerful, reliable I/O interconnect solutions," said John Russo, director of project management at InfiniCon Systems. "Integrating the PowerDrive HT7520 into our InfinIO 7000 Shared I/O System will help enable our technology to provide servers with higher levels of throughput and availability to storage and communications networks. The performance characteristics of PLX's new chip technology are ideal for our application."

The PowerDrive HT7520 offers a powerful architecture that maximizes scalability and preserves system performance. The PowerDrive HT7520 enables daisy chaining of up to 31 HyperTransport devices and supports double-hosted chains.

Availability, Pricing

The PLX PowerDrive HT7520 is sampling now and will be available in production quantities in Q1'03, with high-volume pricing under $100. To become an early adopter of PLX's HyperTransport architecture, contact PLX Technology at 800-759-3735 or 1-408-774-9060 in the U.S. or Canada. Please see the PLX Website at www.plxtech.com for a list of worldwide distributors.

PLX is a member of the HyperTransport Technology Consortium and an active contributor to the compatibility program, necessary for the success of HyperTransport in the marketplace.

About PLX

PLX Technology Inc, www.plxtech.com, based in Sunnyvale, CA, USA, is one of the leading suppliers of high-speed interconnect silicon to the communications industry. The PLX solution provides a competitive edge to our customers through an integrated combination of high-performance silicon, hardware and software design tools, and partnerships. These innovative solutions are designed to enable our customers to develop communication equipment with industry-leading performance, scalability and reliability.

Contact: Kimkinyona Fox, PLX Technology, 408-328-3537, kfox@plxtech.com.