From demonstrations to panel presentations to exhibit booth, The RapidIOTrade Association will have a pervasive presence at the Network Systems Design Conference (NSDC) 2005 beginning with RapidIO Fabric Quick-Start Tutorial, a four-part program including a RapidIO Standard Introduction and Technical Review, Interconnect Technology Comparisons, Software Considerations in RapidIO-based Designs, and Real-World Designs with RapidIO Technology. The Tutorial will begin at 8:30 a.m. on October 18th at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in San Jose. "RapidIO technology has been heralded as the best-of-breed standard defining intra-system connectivity for high-performance embedded systems in networking, communications and storage markets," said Iain Scott, executive director of the RapidIO Trade Association. "It provides the hardware infrastructure that enables development of distributed systems and offers a level of reliability, interoperability and traffic management not available in competing implementations." The RapidIO Tutorial will provide technical content and implementation details to help communications equipment designers, engineering managers, design service providers, and software designers as they move forward with next-generation designs. The tutorial will be presented by Ian Dunn of Mercury Computer, Greg Shippen of Freescale Semiconductor, and Sebastien Marineau of QNX Software Systems. In addition, RapidIO technology will be represented in a variety of sessions beginning October 19th at 2:30 p.m. with Bus Wars -- Which Interconnect Is Best for Networking Equipment, Why, and When?, and continuing on October 20th at 10:30 a.m. with HyperTransport, RapidIO, and PCI Express, at 1:30 p.m. with Switch Fabric Directions by AMCC, and concluding with the CTO Roundtable at 3:45 p.m. During the exhibit, attendees can visit Booth 205 for a live RapidIO technology demonstration. NSDC is the first of a host of events to include the RapidIO Trade Association this Fall including the Freescale Technology Forum, in Munich October 18 and 19; GSPx, October 24-27 in Santa Clara, Calif.; the 3rd International System-on-Chip (SoC) Conference & Exhibit November 1-2, 2005 in Newport Beach, Calif., and the First Annual Advanced TCA Summit December 6-8, 2005 in San Jose, Calif. "The RapidIO standard was designed to optimally support the unique system connectivity of high-performance SoCs, ASICs, and ASSPs designs in networking, communication, I/O processing nodes, servers, wireless network controllers, and other applications where high-performance IO interfaces are required," said Farhad Mafie, president and CEO of the Savant Company Inc. and SoC Conference organizer. "We are very delighted to have the RapidIO Trade Association's sponsorship and participation at the SoC Conference and Exhibit."