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HyperTransport Announces HyperTransport Expansion Interface

HyperTransport Technology Consortium, the nonprofit industry organization that manages and promotes low-latency HyperTransport technology, announced that has approved HTX, the industry's first HyperTransport technology expansion connector specification. The new HyperTransport EATX Motherboard/Daughtercard Specification defines an interface and form factor specification for an EATX motherboard connector and HyperTransport add-in cards. The EATX motherboard is a popular architecture used in high-performance workstations, servers, embedded systems and storage systems. The new HyperTransport Consortium HTX slot standard is intended to accelerate the deployment of HyperTransport technology in the high-performance systems market by defining a standard HyperTransport expansion interface for use with popular motherboards and add- in cards.

"The new HTX connector/daughtercard specification is an important milestone for HyperTransport technology" states Brian Holden, chairperson of the HyperTransport ConsortiumTechnical Working Group. "It gives system and subsystem manufacturers a standard way to attach HyperTransport-enabled subsystems to HyperTransport-enabled motherboards. The high-throughput, low- latency HyperTransport link is an integral part of many 64-bit motherboards and a key interprocessor link for multiprocessor systems."

"This new standard is a result of key member company's willingness to share their work on designing and building advanced server systems," notes Mario Cavalli, general manager of the Consortium. "In particular we would like to recognize Consortium members AMD, Iwill Corp. and PathScale, Inc., for their significant contributions to the definition and validation of the HTX connector, as well as for their decision to share their work with the rest of the industry through the HyperTransport Consortium. The cooperation between AMD, Iwill, PathScale and the Consortium is a model of how individual company interests can be turned into shared community benefit using the Consortium."

"The HTX slot standard allows PathScale to leverage the low-latency, high- bandwidth characteristics of HyperTransport technology in our high performance InfiniPath HTX Adapter and to achieve the industry's absolute lowest latency cluster computing interconnect," said Len Rosenthal, vice president of Marketing for PathScale. "We are pleased that the Consortium agreed to make the HyperTransport HTX connector a Consortium standard. This will lead to its widespread industry adoption and will accelerate deployment of the HyperTransport technology in the high performance computing market segment."

"HyperTransport technology is a premium technology for high performance computing," said David Montgomery, director of Technology Development for Iwill Corp. "We have developed our advanced HTX-Pro HyperTransport expansion technology to support this low-latency link. Consortium-approved standard HTX add-in cards such as the new PathScale InfiniPath cluster interconnect that interoperate with Iwill HTX-Pro technology will help OEMs quickly assemble high performance systems and subsystems without the cost of developing proprietary motherboard designs."

The HyperTransport HTX Motherboard/Daughtercard specification defines an 8- or 16-bit HyperTransport interface with an up to 1.6 gigatransfer per second data rate (800 MHz clock rate) and includes all of the defined HyperTransport control signals including a synchronous reference clock. The connector signals include both 12V and 3.3V power signals, a SMBus interface (3.3V), optionally supports JTAG and enables the use of 4-layer motherboards and daughtercards with conventional PCB technology.

The new HTX specification is optionally compatible with the standard Extended ATX (12" x 13") motherboard form factor. The daughtercard mechanical envelop is compatible with standard PCI cards to fit in existing chassis designs. The HTX components are designed to be used in both riser-based (1U) and pedestal, rack-mount (3U and greater) and proprietary systems. The placement of the connectors are designed to exclude the possibility of accidentally inserting cards built to other known interface specification. The specification defines the mechanical locations of the connectors, pinouts, signaling conventions, mechanical specifications for the 1U riser card and the HyperTransport daughtercard, and layout rules for motherboard, riser, and daughtercard.