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StarGen and StarFabric Working Group Unveil Plan for Royalty-free Access to StarFabric Technology
PICMG establishes StarFabric Interconnect Subcommittee to Develop System Level Specifications
Santa Clara, Calif. - May 14, 2001 - StarGen, Inc., a fabless semiconductor company, and the StarFabric Working Group today announced plans for providing open access to the StarFabric technology. Royalty-free licenses will be available to allow companies to cost-effectively leverage the unique capabilities of StarFabric technology for creating interoperable and compatible StarFabric semiconductor devices. StarFabric is a high-speed point-to-point switched backplane and chassis-to-chassis interconnect solution targeted to meet the needs of next-generation communication equipment developers.
The StarFabric Working Group also announced that the PCI Industrial Computer Manufacturing Group (PICMG) is establishing a subcommittee to develop system-level specifications for StarFabric. PICMG is a consortium of over 700 companies who collaboratively develop open specifications that adapt PCI technology for use in industrial and telecommunication computing applications. The objective of the PICMG StarFabric Interconnect Subcommittee is to provide designers, manufacturers, and integrators with a common set of requirements for implementing backplanes and boards to deliver the benefits of the StarFabric interconnect.
"The trend toward open platforms for telecommunication systems can be accelerated by royalty free access to next generation technology, moving the current open architectures forward in a evolutionary way with protection for existing hardware and software investment," said Tracy Richardson, co-founder and president of StarGen. "We believe open access to technology can provide the most benefit to our customers and the industry. Additionally, through development of system-level specifications by PICMG for StarFabric, all vendors can develop components, sub-systems and platforms that will inter-operate."
Open access to the StarFabric protocol on a royalty-free basis will be guaranteed by an open membership, non-profit consortium that will own and be responsible for any changes to the StarFabric protocol. This consortium will evolve out of the current StarFabric Working Group. The StarFabric Working Group is a group of leading communications industry companies utilizing StarGen's universal switch fabric technology as the basis of proof-of-concept designs intended to illustrate various communications system solutions.
"Open access to StarFabric is good news for the market. Existing vendors and customers are now assured of access to a non-proprietary solution that is a natural evolution from current open architectures" said Warren Andrews of Marketing and Technology Quarterly. "Compatibility to PCI and a simple migration path from existing open standards for telecommunication equipment make StarFabric the logical path forward for the open telecom market. Initial StarFabric prototypes are now flowing into the market. The momentum generated by these "first movers" will lead to an acceleration of switched interconnect solutions complementing and extending today's bus-based systems which are starting to reach scalability and high availability limits."
In related news, StarGen will be demonstrating prototypes of their StarFabric components, reference boards, and example solutions at the Applied Computing Conference this week in Santa Clara, California. StarGen's SG 2010 PCI to StarFabric Bridge provides access from existing standard interconnects to the advanced functionality of StarFabric. The SG 1010 StarFabric Switch is a high throughput switch providing 30Gbps switching capacity with six ports. These devices can be combined in a wide variety of configurations to create cost-effective, small scale systems to extremely large room scale equipment with 100s of end points. These devices offer manufacturers a new option for building high-speed, scalable and highly reliable systems. An easy migration path from current interconnects is provided including 100% backward compatibility with PCI.
About StarFabric Working Group
StarFabric Working Group is a group of communications industry companies exploring next generation technologies compatible with PCI and CompactPCI. The StarFabric Working Group companies share a common vision of the need to build on the success of CompactPCI in the communications market in order to meet critical customer requirements for next-generation equipment.
The working group is utilizing StarGen, Inc.'s unique universal switch fabric technology as the basis of proof-of-concept designs intended to illustrate various communications system solutions. StarGen's switch fabric is a high-speed, point-to-point backplane and chassis-to-chassis interconnect solution. Each proof of concept design will demonstrate how switch fabric-based systems can address critical requirements including system scalability, flexibility, high availability, and quality of service while maintaining compatibility with existing PCI architectures.
Current members include Agere Systems (formerly the Microelectronics Group of Lucent Technologies), Bustronic, Elma Electronic, FCI Electronics, Hybricon, Motorola Computer Group, NMS Communications, Pigeon Point Systems, StarGen, and Sun Microsystems.
About StarGen
StarGen (www.StarGen.com) is a fabless semiconductor company that is developing new switch fabric technology for the communications industry. The technology will benefit vendors of carrier and enterprise communication platforms for next generation voice, data, and video networks. Early adopters will include those building open standards based access/edge equipment such as Voice over Network gateways, DSLAMS, wireless base stations, cable headend systems, edge routers, and remote access concentrators. StarGen's technology will provide a dramatic increase in equipment performance, reliability, and Quality of Service while providing for the retention of existing standards-based hardware and software investment. Founded in February 1999, StarGen is funded by a group of prestigious venture capital companies, including Morgenthaler Ventures (www.morgenthaler.com), St. Paul Venture Capital (www.stpaulvc.com), Commonwealth Capital Ventures (www.ccvlp.com) and Bessemer Venture Partners (www.bessemervp.com). StarGen is headquartered in Marlborough Massachusetts.
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