Breaking News -
Networking:
Corporate Alliance To Design 10
Gbps Interconnect Devices
National Semiconductor Corporation, a premier analog company driving the
information age, and Quellan Incorporated, a privately held signal processing
company, announced a strategic alliance to deliver 10-Gigabit per second
(Gbps) interconnect solutions. With target applications in the server,
networking and storage markets, these next generation integrated circuits are
designed to open the interconnect bottleneck by providing more bandwidth and
longer distance benefits while using less power than existing solutions. In
addition to working with Quellan, National has invested in the privately held
start-up company to speed development and delivery of advanced interconnect
devices to National's worldwide customer base.
This alliance leverages the intellectual property of both companies.
National
provides analog, mixed-signal, manufacturing and marketing expertise, while
Quellan offers world-class expertise in collaborative signal processing, which
combines adaptive equalization, advanced modulation and noise
cancellation.
"Quellan's technology achieves the greatest interconnect reach per watt at
speeds of 10 Gbps and beyond," said Michael Noonen, vice president of
National's Wired Communications Group. "Unlike other solutions on the market,
this addresses multiple interconnect needs: chip-to-chip, blade-to-blade and
box-to-box. The combination of Quellan's innovations and National
Semiconductor's analog IC design capability will allow us to create products
that dramatically increase communication bandwidth and distance with less
power consumption."
Marketed under National's name, products from the partnership will include
several families of devices, including equalizers, transceivers and noise
cancellers. They will be optimized for interconnections in systems such as
enterprise applications and communications infrastructure equipment, and
provide data rates that are 10 times faster than existing technologies. The
equalizers compensate for electrical signal loss in bandwidth limited
signaling channels. Target applications are backplane and cables with data
transfer rates from 3.125 to 6.25 Gbps, and coax cable applications for HDTV
studio production equipment. The first product will sample in the third
quarter of 2003.
"With the relentless increases in network density and bandwidth, getting
interconnects to run at 5 and 10 Gbps is becoming a mandatory requirement for
equipment manufacturers," said Tony Stelliga, chairman and CEO of Quellan.
"While this is a substantial challenge, it provides Quellan and National
Semiconductor with an exciting opportunity. The modulation, equalization and
cancellation techniques used in our collaborative signal processing devices
will provide a winning solution when coupled with National's advanced CMOS
process and worldwide channels."
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