Intel Improves Storage And Network Performance

Intel Improves Storage And Network Performance With New Enterprise I/O Products

Intel XScale® Technology Gives Rise to Higher Server Performance

At this weeks Intel Developer Forum (Taiwan), Intel has announced that it is taking aim at I/O bottlenecks in the enterprise with a new series of highly integrated building blocks that pair performance with design simplicity to meet the bandwidth needs of emerging storage, networking and telecommunications applications.

“Satisfying increasing I/O performance demands is critical to equipment makers designing next-generation storage, networking and telecommunications applications,” said Mike Wall, general manager for Intel’s Storage Components Division. “But they also face rising development costs, narrow market windows and design considerations, such as limited board space and excess heat. Intel’s new I/O products provide highly integrated building blocks that address all of these problems.”

New Products The new products from Intel include I/O processors, chipsets, optical transceivers and bridges aimed at reducing development time and costs. The Intel® IOP331 I/O Processor is a single-chip solution that builds on Intel XScale® technology and enhanced memory to nearly triple the overall performance possible with existing I/O processors. The IOP331 processor integrates DDR memory and a PCI-X bridge, which makes it the first complete Intel XScale architecture-based I/O system on a chip. This integration simplifies the design effort and cuts development costs for such I/O applications as RAID controllers, security NICs and high-performance iSCSI adapters. Intel also introduced the complementary Intel® IQ80331 Evaluation Board to help speed product development.

The Intel® IOP315 I/O processor chipset utilises the power of the Intel 80200 processor based upon Intel XScale® microarchitecture and the 80314 I/O companion chip to enhance the performance of disk arrays in storage-area network and network-attached storage applications. The chipset integrates dual Gigabit Ethernet controllers, a PCI-X bridge and enhanced error detection that accelerates iSCSI operations. The iSCSI standard enables storage networks to utilise standard Ethernet networks to transmit storage data for lower-cost SAN implementations.

The Intel® TXN18107 10 Gbps Multimode Optical Transceiver enables greater port density at the lowest cost – less than $US500 – for server I/O cards, switches and storage-array interfaces on Ethernet and Fibre Channel networks. This new transceiver is based on the XFP multisource agreement, which defines a small, cost-effective form factor for 10-Gigabit fiber-optic transceivers. It also supports multimode fiber, which is the most common type found in enterprises today.

The Intel® 41210 Serial to Parallel PCI Bridge, a PCI Express-to-PCI/PCI-X 1.0 bridge, enables add-in cards to function on PCI Express technology-based platforms. The complementary Intel® 41210 Development Platform helps to further accelerate the transition of legacy PCI card applications to the new interconnect technology.

At the Intel Developer Forum in Taiwan, Intel demonstrated its next I/O storage processor, code-named Dobson, which integrates PCI Express and Intel XScale technologies to make high-performance RAID on motherboard (ROMB) an integral feature of Intel’s next-generation Lindenhurst server chipset, and provides data protection for SCSI, SATA and Fibre Channel disk arrays.

Pricing and Availability The Intel® IOP331 I/O Processor and the Intel IQ80331 Evaluation Board are available now, and cost $US69 in quantities of 10,000 for the processor and $US4,500 for the board. The Intel® IOP315 I/O processor chipset is sampling now and costs $US105 to $US159 in quantities of 10,000, depending on options and performance. The IQ80314 PCI-X Development Platform is available now and costs $4,500.

The Intel® TXN18107 10 Gbps Multimode Optical Transceiver costs $US495 in quantities of 1,000 and is currently sampling. The Intel® 41210 Serial to Parallel PCI Bridge and Intel IQ41210 Development Kit will be available early in 2004. The bridge costs $US32 in quantities of 10,000 and the development kit costs $US1,300.

About IDF The Intel Developer Forum is the technology industry's premier event for hardware and software developers. Held worldwide throughout the year, IDF brings together key industry players to discuss cutting-edge technology and products for PCs, servers, communications equipment, and handheld clients. For more information on IDF and Intel technology, visit http://developer.intel.com.

Intel, the world’s largest chip maker, is also a leading manufacturer of computer, networking and communications products. Additional information about Intel is available at http://www.intel.com/pressroom.

* Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others. Intel and Intel XScale are trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries.

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