More details : *New* PCI bus standard

[sriram@neomagic.com (Sriram Ramamurthy)]

The PCI-X bus seems to be targeted at I/O performances particularly
for servers.

Sriram
NeoMagic Corp

Here is attachment from Compaq's press release.

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Wednesday September 9, 3:44 pm Eastern Time
                                          
Company Press Release                                 Related Quotes
                                                      CPQ    31 5/16 -11/16
Compaq, HP and IBM Collaborate to Double              HWP    49 1/4    +1/4
Peformance Of PCI Bus Technology                      MYLX    5 3/8   +7/16
                                                      delayed 20 mins -
Broad Industry Support Drives PCI-X as Open           disclaimer
Industry Standard
 
HOUSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 9, 1998 -- Compaq, Hewlett-Packard Company
[NYSE:HWP - news] and IBM today announce a joint development initiative to
deliver significant improvements in the PCI bus technology standard. These
improvements will give customers an unmatched level of performance for their
current industry standard I/O systems, especially for high-end business
critical applications.
 
This new technology, PCI-X, is an extension to the existing PCI bus, runs at
speeds up to 133 MHz and provides the critical I/O bandwidth needed for
industry standard servers running enterprise applications such as Gigabit
Ethernet, Fibre Channel, Ultra3 SCSI and Cluster Interconnects. PCI-X will
provide customers with much needed PCI bandwidth and with investment
protection because it offers backward compatibility with existing systems.
PCI-X-based products will be available in enterprise-class products the
second half of 1999.
 
``PCI-X clearly drives industry standard computing to the next level. Our
collaboration with HP and IBM will foster the extension of existing PCI bus
standards well into the future to meet the demanding computing requirements
of enterprise customers,'' according to Mary McDowell, vice president and
general manager, Industry Standard Server Division, Compaq Computer
Corporation.
 
``PCI-X is focused on reducing customer ownership costs by extending the
life of today's PCI bus technology. IBM, along with Compaq and HP, is
providing customers with a stable technology roadmap to future I/O systems
without sacrificing their investments made in PCI technology to date,'' said
Randy Groves, vice president of development, IBM Netfinity.
 
``By delivering greater speed, improved transfer rates and increased
efficiency, PCI-X delivers leading edge innovations to an existing
technology, '' said Denny Georg, general manager, Systems and Technology,
HP's Enterprise Systems Group. ``Our collaboration has resulted in the
innovations needed to deliver the level of performance required for
business-critical 24x7 computing.''

 
The 64-bit PCI-X bus operates at speeds up to 133 MHz, providing burst
transfer rates above 1 gigabyte per second, eight times the rate of the most
common PCI implementations today. PCI-X also features an enhanced protocol
to increase the efficiency of data transfer and to simplify electrical
timing requirements, an important factor at higher clock frequencies.
Allowances for future capabilities are also provided. In addition, PCI-X is
designed to accomplish this while remaining backward compatible with the
current PCI bus.
 
PCI-X already has broad industry support, a requirement for the successful
introduction of any new technology in this industry. In addition to all the
promoter companies, leading Independent Hardware Vendors (IHVs) including
3Com, Adaptec and Mylex also support PCI-X and will introduce products when
platforms become available. ``We are working on PCI-X because we think it
represents an important, mainstream extension of PCI technology,'' said
Robert Selinger, vice president of Adaptec's Advanced Technology Group.
``Adaptec is committed to faster I/O, such as PCI-X, due to its fundamental
impact on the future of servers and workstations.''
 
``As the worldwide networking leader, 3Com Corporation has a keen interest
in this new, standards-based technology that helps accelerate network
performance,'' said Randy Meals, vice president and general manager for
advanced products. ``Specifically, 3Com believes PCI-X removes one more
important barrier between the individual and the pent-up power of the
network. We enthusiastically endorse the collaboration of Compaq, HP and IBM
and support their goal of making PCI-X available as a standard bus as
quickly as possible.''
 
``As a leading RAID controller vendor, Mylex is excited about PCI-X's
potential to reduce I/O bottleneck,'' said KK Rao, CTO and vice president of
engineering at Mylex Corporation [Nasdaq:MYLX - news]. ``The efforts of
PCI-X group will complement recent technology advances in the RAID
controller arena that reduce I/O bottlenecks between storage and network
servers.'' In addition, Intel and other industry leading companies are
revealing the PCI-X proposal.
 
To ensure PCI-X is broadly available to the industry as an open standard,
Compaq, HP and IBM have submitted a proposal to the PCI Special Interest
Group (SIG) to include PCI-X in future PCI standards while ensuring
consistency and compatibility with today's PCI. By turning the technology
over to the SIG, it gives all companies the ability to develop PCI-X-based
products, which will accelerate its adoption and address a broad range of
customer needs.