Press Release

PCI-X v1.0 Officially Released to the Industry

PCI addendum doubles existing I/O bandwidth

PORTLAND, Oregon - September 27, 1999 - The PCI Special Interest Group (PCI-SIG) announced today that PCI-X v1.0, a high performance addendum to the PCI Local Bus specification, was unanimously approved for release to the industry. The v1.0 release follows a standard 30-day member review period that included incorporation of comments by many PCI-SIG members. PCI-X is the first I/O industry standard to break the 1 Gbyte/sec barrier in sustainable bandwidth and is set for immediate development in servers and workstations. With the release of PCI-X v1.0, the PCI-SIG continues to play its role as a steadfast leader in the industry for providing solutions for today's I/O demands.

PCI-X provides a backward compatible high performance extension to the PCI Local Bus specification that offers an immediate solution to the increased I/O requirements for high-bandwidth applications such as Gigabit Ethernet, Fibre Channel, Ultra3 SCSI and high-performance graphics. PCI-X supports 32-bit and 64-bit operations at frequencies up to 133 MHz, allowing performance capability of over 1 Gbyte/sec 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. PCI-X protects customer investment by providing backward compatibility with existing PCI systems and adapters and takes advantage of the existing PCI infrastructure and installed base of PCI-based systems, software, and PCI I/O boards by building on the existing skills and resources of the current PCI specification. In addition to addressing legacy issues, PCI-X and other advanced I/O technologies, such as switched fabric architectures, will co-exist in the marketplace. "PCI-X brings all the goodness of PCI into a high-performance I/O solution for current and future high-bandwidth applications," said Michael Bailey, chairman of the PCI-SIG. "By being both forward looking and backward compatible, PCI-X gives the industry the best of both worlds, and we expect the industry to fully embrace this evolution to the PCI standard."

About the PCI-SIG

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 sit at http://www.pcisig.com.

PCI-X v1.0 Supporting Quote Sheet

3Com Corp.
"The countdown to PCI-X implementation marks the next evolution in personal computing," said Tom Werner, vice president and general manager of 3Com's Business Connectivity Group. "3Com is committed to leading innovation in every aspect of the networking experience. Today's innovation, PCI-X, bursts one of the biggest dams constricting the river of connectivity resulting in people and organizations more connected to their world."

Adaptec Corp.
Changes to the PCI specification are needed to keep pace with ever increasing networking and storage bandwidth requirements, to take advantage of advances in ASIC fabrication and smarter bridging technologies, and to allow for a gentler transition to switched fabric architectures. As the industry leader in storage I/O solutions, Adaptec is actively involved in the development of the PCI-X specification and will be among the first to offer PCI-X products.

For more information please contact Frankie Borison, Adaptec public relations manager, at (408)957-2044.

Compaq Computer Corp.
"As a leader in developing standards-based technologies and one of the originators of PCI-X, Compaq is pleased to see the PCI-SIG release the PCI-X specification as an open standard to the industry," says Karl Walker, Vice President of Technology Development for Compaq Computer Corp. "To meet the needs of our customers, Compaq will begin delivering PCI-X based products in the second quarter of year 2000."

IBM Corporation
"IBM helped develop and drive the PCI-X standard as a way for our customers to get the full benefit out of the PCI standard. And we're actively working on the next generation of I/O technologies that will take over in the next few years," said Tom Bradicich, Director of IBM's Netfinity Server Architecture and Design Group. "PCI-X complements our Netfinity X-architecture by delivering improved and balanced system level performance, while preserving both industry and customer investment in PCI technology. "

For more information, please contact IBM public relations contact Michael Corrado at (914) 766-3052.

Intel Corporation
"As a founder and the current chair of the PCI-SIG, Intel encourages and participates in advances to the PCI specification and addendums," said Tom Macdonald of Intel's Enterprise Server Group. "For PCI applications that require more bandwidth than is available with today's PCI Spec rev 2.2, PCI-X will play a role in advancing what has become the most broadly adopted I/O architecture in the computer industry. We expect PCI-X to co-exist with other current and future I/O standards. Accordingly, Intel will respond to the needs of it's customers to deliver the I/O building blocks needed to build high-performance standard high volume servers."

Phoenix Technologies, Ltd.
"For many of our IP core and system software customers, the bandwidth limitations of the existing PCI bus have created a bottleneck in their high-end system designs," said Laurent Gharda, Vice President of Marketing, Phoenix. "The PCI-X addendum will provide our customers with the performance boost they need to enhance tomorrow's I/O subsystems. PCI-X is the next logical extension for Phoenix's system software, semiconductor IP cores, and test environments."

Texas Instruments
"PCI-X is a logical extension of the PCI local bus standard that improves the performance of high-speed I/O for today's bandwidth-intensive applications," said Gerald Wineinger, Director of Emerging Markets and Technologies, Texas Instruments, and PCI-SIG Steering Committee member. "Providing a backward-compatible solution is an important step in moving PCI technologies forward to address emerging market needs."