STORAGE

PMC-Sierra today announced its latest generation Tachyon Fibre Channel controller, the HPFC-6600 QE4, enabling a new class of high-performance networked storage systems. The quad channel 4G Fibre Channel controller with PCI-Express interfaces seamlessly to PMC-Sierra's 4G Fibre Channel loop switch devices, delivering a complete fabric-to-disk-drive solution for enterprise storage systems. In addition, the QE4 can be used with PMC-Sierra's 3G MaxSAS expander switches and SAS/SATA multiplexers to enable cost-optimized tiered storage system architectures. The Tachyon QE4 provides 4 Gbit/s Fibre Channel SAN connectivity for Fibre Channel, SAS and SATA HDD-based storage systems and is fully compatible with existing 2G and 1G networks. The controller interfaces to external CPUs for RAID and customer-specific application processing through an eight-lane native PCI express bus, and provides advanced features to offload external processors and increase system performance. Furthermore, the QE4 provides 4G Fibre Channel hard disk connectivity through assured interoperability with PMC-Sierra's CTS loop switch product family. "PMC-Sierra worked closely with the industry's leading storage OEMs to deliver a 4G Fibre Channel controller that enables our customers to achieve new levels of performance and capabilities, while leveraging their existing hardware and software infrastructure," said Mark Stibitz, vice president and general manager of PMC-Sierra's Enterprise Storage Division. "With the recent acquisition of the Agilent Storage Semiconductor Business, PMC-Sierra is in a unique position to offer the industry's most complete and interoperable solutions to our customers." "With 4G SAN ports ramping sharply this year, storage array OEMs worldwide are looking to accelerate the delivery of their next generation systems," said Ian Eigenbrod, senior research analyst with IDC. "Leading silicon vendors are enabling this transition to 4G by owning the storage signal path with end-to-end chipset solutions, guaranteeing component interoperability from controller to disk and minimizing time to market for these new high-performance systems." The Tachyon QE4 supports four channels of 4 Gbit/s data transfer, achieves up to 3.2 Gbit/s throughput and greater than 1.4 million input/output per second (IOPS) performance. The QE4 integrates a host of leading-edge features including: -- A native eight-lane PCI-Express bus; -- Reducing PCI-Express bus overhead by supporting 4096 TLP sizes; -- Multi-DMA to enable system cache mirroring with minimal CPU overhead; -- Frame steering for hardware assisted virtualization; -- Multi-CPU support to extend processor scalability and to allow special frame handling within a single Fibre Channel port; and -- Support for the T-10 Standard "Protection Information" via ADIF (Advanced Data Integrity Field) to ensure complete integrity in the I/O data path. PMC-Sierra provides a Tachyon Software Development Kit (TSDK) that encapsulates the Fibre Channel protocol behind an architected Application Programming Interface (API), managing all chip-specific control of the Tachyon devices. This software, including sample drivers, allows users to focus their engineering resources on system-level software development, significantly improving time to market. Pricing and Availability HPFC-6600 Tachyon QE4 device is available now, packaged in 544-pin FC PBGA package using 0.13 micron technology, and priced at $225 in prototype quantities. HPFC-6640, the lead-reduced QE4, is also available. For further information, including datasheets, please visit its Web site or contact PMC-Sierra at sales@pmc-sierra.com.