Agere Systems Announces World's Fastest Multimedia, Storage Chip Portfolio For Homes And Businesses
May 25 2005 - 8:00AM
PR Newswire (US)
Agere Systems Announces World's Fastest Multimedia, Storage Chip
Portfolio For Homes And Businesses * Trailblazing Chips Race 20
Times Faster Than All Competing Chips ALLENTOWN, Pa., May 25
/PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Agere Systems (NYSE:AGR.ANYSE:AGR.B)
today announced the world's fastest multimedia and storage
networking portfolio of chips for homes and businesses. These trail
blazing media server chips accelerate the speed at which multimedia
files are transferred within homes and businesses approximately
twenty times faster than all competing chips. (Logo:
http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20040618/AGERELOGO ) Streaming
multimedia content at 1 gigabit per second (Gbit/s) data rates, the
chips manage how digital content, such as data, music, pictures and
video, get accessed and stored on a home or business network.
Designed for use in digital media server and network attached
storage solutions, these chips can dramatically transform the new
age of the digital home as well as the evolving needs of small- and
medium-sized businesses. Using equipment powered by these chips,
for example, people inside a home can watch high definition TV
(HDTV) on up to eight different TV sets simultaneously without any
decline in performance-a benefit impossible with current
single-chip offerings. Furthermore, a home user can expect the same
level of backup, security and bandwidth they are used to in the
corporate environment, at a cost and performance level unmatched in
the industry. This portfolio of chips is called NASn01 (network
attached storage), in which n stands for the number of Serial
Advance Technology Attachment Level 1 (SATA 1) hard disk drives
(HDDs) the chips can support. The portfolio includes four members:
NAS8xx (supports up to 8 SATA 1 drives), NAS4xx (supports up to 4
SATA 1drives), NAS2xx (supports up to 2 SATA 1 drives), and the
NAS1xx (supports a single SATA 1 drive). This announcement
coincides with next week's Computex Taipei 2005 trade show in
Taiwan (booth # 104). Media streaming technology from Digital 5
Inc. is embedded in these chips. The NASn01 chips enable true
high-speed performance through hardware chip acceleration rather
than software-based implementations which seriously degrade
streaming performance. In addition to its 1 Gbit/s speed benefit,
key features include the ability to manage multiple streams (up to
64 concurrent sessions), content protection through RAID 0, 1, 4, 5
(Redundant Array of Inde pendent Disks), multiple hard disk drive
(HDD) configurations (1, 2, 4, 8) for expandable storage capacity,
and optional data security. The Agere chips provide the ability to
dynamically allocate bandwidth, protect the network, and store
media and data content. Inside the digital home, for example, these
capabilities will make it possible for multiple people in the same
house to simultaneously share, view and send digital entertainment
content to and from a wide range of consumer equipment such as
digital media servers, network-attached storage, PC
storage/expansion and backup gear, routers, multi-user personal
video recorders, network area servers, and audio servers.
Similarly, in business environments the amount of bandwidth and
storage required is growing exponentially, and this Agere chips
meet the needs of such requirements. The NASn01 chips integrate two
network interfaces: Gigabit Ethernet (10/100/1000) for high
bandwidth local area network applications; and Universal Serial Bus
2.0 for connectivity to a wireless local area network. The chips
also house a multi-port (1, 2, 4, 8) SATA-1 storage controller to
interface with up to eight HDDs. A high-performance,
hardware-accelerated streaming RAID function, providing continuous
operation if any one of the HDDs in the system fails, protects
media content. RAID recovery migration or expansion can occur
without user intervention. Hard coded within the chips-and a major
hub of their "brainpower" -is a traffic management arbitrator (TMA)
block that provides the "fast path" hardware acceleration from the
HDD to the network interface. This arbitrator schedules, controls
and delivers stream-aware quality of service management to
guarantee support for up to eight concurrent HDTV streaming
sessions. The arbitrator distinguishes between traffic that needs
to be guaranteed to arrive on time versus traffic that can be
delayed, and dynamically allocates bandwidth accordingly. This
traffic management capability, coupled with an embedded upper layer
protocol accelerator, enables the chips to run efficiently with
non-blocking bi-directional 1 Gbit/s throughput. "These chips are
all about launching people into a new stratosphere of experiences
and benefits in the digital technology age, due to massive
improvements in speeds, bandwidths, convenience and versatility,"
said Necip Sayiner, vice president of the Agere Systems' Enterprise
and Networking Division. "And there's another key benefit: For
years people have benefited from knowing that their valued digital
media preservation at work is completely backed up and retrievable
using their companies' networks. With these chips, people now can
get that same advantage in their homes." Agere is making available
a complete evaluation platform that includes a chassis housing
three SATA HDDs and the software stack for evaluation in both home
and business applications. This platform is architected for use
with an embedded, open-use Linux(R) operation system. Using the
open protocol of UPnP (Universal Plug-and-Play), integrated
third-party middleware and the DLNA (Digital Living Network
Alliance) standard, it will provide inter operability with media
client devices. The continued growth in the amount of multimedia
content in the home, including music, movies and pictures, has
driven the need for cost-effective solutions for creating devices
that can store and stream these files throughout the connected
home. The integration of Digital 5 software on the Agere chips will
provide equipment manufacturers with a complete solution for
network attached storage devices so consumers can store, manage and
access digital music, pictures and movies from anywhere in the
home. Devices enabled with this solution are capable of streaming
WMA, MP3, AAC, LPCM audio files; and industry-standard video
formats such as WMV, MPEG1, MPEG2, and MPEG4 smoothly and
efficiently. It can also render digital photo files stored in JPEG,
TIFF, GIF, or BMP-enabling slideshow presentation of photos
delivered to the TV. These new chips announcement builds on a
November 2004 agreement announced by Agere and Digital 5. Under the
agreement, the companies are developing a complete hardware and
software reference platform to help accelerate the time- to-market
for products by original design manufacturers (ODMs) and original
equipment manufacturers (OEMs) addressing this attached storage
market. "As the amount of digital entertainment content continues
to grow, the ability to store, manage and access that content
across a home network is one of the most compelling benefits of our
marketplace," said Mike Harris, president of Digital 5, Inc. "We
are pleased to be working with Agere to provide OEMs these
trailblazing solutions to enable them to bring to market a
compelling NAS consumer product for accessing content in the
connected home." The NASn01 chips are scheduled for general sample
availability in July of this year. They are priced at $36 in
quantities of 1,000. For more information on Agere's product,
please visit http://www.agere.com/entnet. Customers in the U.S. may
call the Agere Systems Customer Response Center at 1-800-372-2447.
Customers in Canada may call 1-800-553-2448. Customers outside
those countries may call 1-610-712-4323. Fax inquiries may be
directed to 1-610-712-4106, or e-mail queries to . Written
inquiries should be sent to Agere Systems, Room 10A-301C, 1110
American Parkway NE, Lehigh Valley Central Campus, Allentown, PA
18109, USA. Agere Systems is a global leader in semiconductors for
storage, wireless data, and public and enterprise networks. The
company's chips and software power a broad range of computing and
communications applications, from cell phones, PCs, PDAs, hard disk
drives and gaming devices to the world's most sophisticated
wireless and wireline networks. Agere's customers include top
manufacturers of consumer electronics, communications and computing
equipment. Agere's products connect people to information and
entertainment at home, at work and on the road-enabling the
connected lifestyle. Digital 5, Inc. (Digital 5), is a leading
provider of software and system intellectual property to enable
both wireless and wired sharing of content among networked consumer
electronics (CE) devices. Digital 5's software technology is used
to enable new products for existing CE categories, such as DVD
Players, televisions, and stereo systems, giving them the
capability to access media content over a home network and the
Internet. These products allow consumers to enjoy their music,
digital pictures, or video in the comfort of their various home
entertainment locations. Digital 5 brings fundamentally new
capabilities to market for leading original equipment manufacturers
(OEMs) and original design manufacturers (ODMs). With headquarters
in Lawrenceville, New Jersey and operations in California, Japan,
Taiwan and India, Digital 5 can be contacted on the World Wide Web
at http://www.digital5.com/. Agere is a registered trademark and
Agere Systems and the Agere Systems logo are trademarks of Agere
Systems Inc. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.
This release contains forward-looking statements based on
information currently available to Agere. Agere's actual results
could differ materially from the results stated or implied by those
forward-looking statements due to a number of risks and
uncertainties. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not
limited to, our reliance on major customers and suppliers, our
ability to keep pace with technological change, our dependence on
new product development, price and product competition,
availability of manufacturing capacity, customer demand for our
products and services, and general industry and market conditions.
For a further discussion of these and other risks and
uncertainties, see our annual report on Form 10-K for the fiscal
year ended September 30, 2004, and our quarterly report on Form
10-Q for the quarter ended March 31, 2005. Agere disclaims any
intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking
statements, whether as a result of new information, future events
or otherwise.
http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20040618/AGERELOGO
http://photoarchive.ap.org/ DATASOURCE: Agere Systems CONTACT:
Charlie Hartley of Agere Systems, +1-610-712-1728, Mobile:
+1-908-507-6631, Web site: http://www.agere.com/
http://www.digital5.com/
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