StarFabric Architects to Assist in Development of PCI Express Advanced Switching Specification

Alignment of StarFabric and Advanced Switching Capabilities

MARLBOROUGH, MA and SANTA CLARA, CA – August 12, 2002 – The StarFabric™ Trade Association and PCI Express™ Advanced Switching Working Group today announced plans to ensure interoperability between the StarFabric architecture and emerging PCI Express Advanced Switching interconnect standards. The StarFabric Trade Association owns and manages the StarFabric architecture that today incorporates many features and capabilities that are expected to be included in the PCI Express Advanced Switching specification. The PCI Express Advanced Switching Working Group is developing communications-oriented switching specifications for PCI Express, the high-performance serial I/O technology targeted for communications, embedded and compute platforms.

The PCI Express Advanced Switching specification is targeted at establishing a standards-based interconnect between chips, boards and switch fabrics that will support feature-rich, cost-efficient communications solutions for the next decade.

“The experience of StarFabric architects will provide valuable assistance in developing an interconnect that combines the cost-efficiency of a standards-based approach with the performance required to support robust communications solutions,” said Tim Parker, spokesman for the PCI Express Advanced Switching Working Group and director of strategic planning and technology initiatives for Intel Corporation. “The StarFabric Trade Association is among a rapidly growing number of hardware and software vendors, and communications equipment manufacturers working toward rapid adoption of the specification.”

StarFabric is an open-standard, high-speed, point-to-point switched backplane and chassis-to-chassis interconnect solution fully compatible with PCI, TDM and other industry standard bus architectures. Products based on StarFabric technology are currently shipping from a diverse set of companies, representing a wide range of markets and applications.

“PCI Express Advanced Switching and StarFabric are focused on many of the same goals, some of which helped to guide us in developing the StarFabric architecture three years ago,” said Dave Mayhew, chief StarFabric architect at StarGen, Inc. “We are excited by the opportunity to apply the insight and experience we have gained toward helping ensure the adopted specification will utilize the proven capabilities included in the StarFabric architecture. StarFabric customers can anticipate that future PCI Express Advanced Switching specifications will closely align with StarFabric capabilities providing a path to 10Gbps applications and beyond when PCI Express Advanced Switching is available.“

About the StarFabric Trade Association
The StarFabric Trade Association, a non-profit, open membership industry group, was created to develop and promote the StarFabric switched interconnect technology. The founding members represent a wide spectrum of organizations, which together provide the broad and diverse perspective required to ensure StarFabric will continue to meet the dynamic market requirements of next generation embedded and communication systems.

StarFabric is a powerful switched interconnect technology for backplane and chassis-to-chassis applications. It enables next generation Embedded Distributed Processing applications to meet market demands. The technology provides for unprecedented levels of scalability, performance and availability for a wide range of systems. It supports multiple classes of traffic, adding further flexibility and enhancements to systems while utilizing existing standards-based software and hardware investments.

The StarFabric Trade Association owns the StarFabric Architecture and is responsible for all future enhancements. (www.starfabric.org)

About the PCI Express Advanced Switching Working Group
The PCI Express Advanced Switching Work Group consists of communications companies that include Intel, Network Appliances, StarGen, Marvell, Nokia, Pigeon Point Systems, Sandcraft, PLX, Redswitch, Tundra, HP, IDT, Xilinx, SUN and Agilent.