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IDC NAMES AGERE WORLD LEADER IN IC FOR HDD AND SONET/SDH

Agere Systems announced recently that it has been named the world leader in integrated circuits (IC) for hard disk drives and SONET/SDH multiservice networking equipment, according to new reports by industry analyst firm IDC. Agere increased market share in both technology segments, climbing from No. 3 positions in 2001 to No. 1 in 2002.

IDC's reports list Agere's share for hard disk drive ICs at 22 percent of the 2002 worldwide storage semiconductor market and 23 percent of the SONET/SDH semiconductor market.

"Agere seized the leadership position in these semiconductor segments due to its system-on-a-chip expertise and broad product portfolio targeting designs with key hard disk drive and MAN/WAN infrastructure OEMs," said Sean Lavey, program manager at IDC.

SoC Expertise Key to Storage IC Leadership

Storage ICs control the transfer, manipulation and retrieval of data in hard disk drives. Along with leadership in storage ICs overall, Agere was also the top provider of storage preamplifiers and system-on-a-chip (SoC) solutions. In its first year tracking storage SoCs as a segment, IDC cites Agere's market share at 63 percent.

SoCs are the key industry trend in the storage semiconductor market. SoCs provide higher levels of integration by combining multiple storage semiconductor functions on a single silicon device. This helps hard drive makers simplify their drive designs, improve reliability, reduce power consumption and ease manufacturing -- while lowering drive costs.

"In an industry where success hinges on being SoC-centered, Agere's solutions command nearly two-thirds of the market," said Joe O'Hare, vice president of Agere's Storage division. "Agere is setting the trends in today's storage market through our integration expertise as well as our continued innovation in emerging areas such as serial interface technologies."

Agere introduced its first storage SoCs in 2001, and has shipped more than 70 million units to date. Agere's read-channel technology, which is embedded in its SoC solutions, can be found in more than 50 percent of hard disk drives shipping today.

Agere's TrueStore portfolio of storage solutions consists of SoCs, read-channel ICs, hard disk drive controllers, motor controllers, and preamplifiers. Storage ICs are used in applications ranging from hard disk drives for desktop PCs, laptops and enterprise servers, to consumer products such as game consoles, personal video recorders, digital cameras, PDAs and MP3 players.

Multiservice Line Card Solutions Drive SONET/SDH Leadership

Synchronous optical networking/synchronous digital hierarchy (SONET/SDH) chips include physical media devices, physical layer devices, framers, mappers, and overhead processing application-specific standard products (ASSPs) and application specific ICs (ASICs) used at OC-3, OC-12, OC-48, OC- 192 and OC-768 speeds. In addition to SONET/SDH leadership, IDC's report also named Agere No. 1 in T/E transmission ICs and No. 2 in asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) chips.

"These rankings demonstrate that our multiservice IC solutions for wireline and wireless equipment are being embraced by our customers on a broader basis," said Mark Granahan, vice president of Agere's Access and Transport division. "We increased our market share by developing full line card solutions, containing several Agere chips, that lower our customers' overall system costs and enhance performance."

Agere's MARS (multi-service access and rate solutions) family of framers and mappers are part of the company's premier portfolio of bundled line card solutions, based on a common hardware and software platform that allows customers to reduce system development costs and speed time-to-market. Agere's MARS solutions target popular applications in the multiservice networking space, such as virtual private networks, 3G wireless and digital subscriber lines. Framer and mapper chips are critical to performing access and transport functions in today's fiber optic networks.