Press Release

PCI-X Addendum Released for Member Review

The addendum to the PCI local bus specification is formally submitted to the PCI-SIG membership

Portland, Oregon, June 28, 1999 - The PCI Special Interest Group (PCI-SIG) today announced the release of the PCI-X addendum to PCI-SIG membership for formal review. The membership has 30 days with which to review the new specification that will effectively double the speed of the current PCI local bus specification. After the member review period, the PCI-SIG Steering Committee will formally release the specification in Q3 1999.

PCI-X is a backward compatible high performance extension of the PCI local bus that addresses the increased input/output (I/O) requirements for today's high-bandwidth applications such as Gigabit Ethernet, Fibre Channel, Ultra3 SCSI and graphics. PCI-X supports 32-bit and 64-bit operations at frequencies up to 133 MHz, allowing performance capability of up to 1 Gigabyte per second data throughput.

While PCI-X will potentially be used throughout the entire computer industry, the initial application of PCI-X is expected to be in server and workstation products with additional applications in embedded systems and data communication environments. In addition to providing enterprise class I/O performance, PCI-X is focused on protecting customer investment by providing backward compatibility with existing systems and adapters.

In order to help streamline the review process, PCI-SIG will conduct the addendum review electronically allowing PCI-SIG members to download the addendum directly from the PCI-SIG Web site at http://www.pcisig.com. PCI-SIG will also receive and review comments electronically.

Formed in June 1992, PCI-SIG is the industry organization that owns and manages the PCI Local Bus specification. More than 850 industry-leading companies are active PCI-SIG members. The organization is chartered to support new requirements while preserving backwards compatibility for all PCI revisions, maintaining the specification as an easy-to-implement, stable technology, and contributing to the technical longevity of PCI and its establishment as an industry-wide standard. For more information, contact PCI-SIG via phone at 800-433-5177 (within the U.S.) or fax at 503-693-8344, or visit the PCI-SIG Web site at http://www.pcisig.com.