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Hitachi and PMC-Sierra Complete 4Gb/S Fibre Channel Interoperability

Posted on: Thursday, 3 June 2004, 06:00 CDT

Companies Mark Significant Advancement in Effort to Deliver the Industry's Fastest Enterprise Storage Interface

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (Hitachi GST) and PMC-Sierra (Nasdaq:PMCS) today announced the completion of 4Gb/s Fibre Channel Arbitrated Loop (FCAL) interoperability testing between PMC-Sierra's intelligent 4Gb/s Fibre Channel (FC) Port Bypass Controllers and Hitachi 4Gb/s FC hard disk drive prototypes. The successful 4Gb/s FCAL interoperability testing provides system level hardware compatibility between these two critical system components, thereby offering server and storage equipment vendors a proven system solution. As a result, original equipment manufacturers will be able to develop next-generation 4Gb/s Fibre Channel storage systems in a timely manner to meet the increasing performance, reliability, availability and serviceability storage demands of today's enterprises.

Interoperability Demonstrates High Performance and Reliability

The interoperability testing showcased 4Gb/s FCAL error free operation between PMC-Sierra's PM8377 PBC 4x4G device and multiple Hitachi GST hard disk drive prototypes over a period greater than 72 hours (Bit Error Rate (BER) of approximately 10^-15). PMC-Sierra's PM2386-KIT evaluation platform provided the test vehicle to interface the PM8377 PBC 4x4G to Hitachi's hard disk drives.

The testing comprised of multiple successful 4Gb/s FCAL hardware exchanges between PMC-Sierra's PM8377 PBC 4x4G device and Hitachi's 4Gb/s FC disk drive prototypes. PMC-Sierra's intelligent PBCs built-in diagnostics and monitoring capabilities were used to ensure FCAL compliance by validating the Fibre Channel frames to and from the Hitachi hard disk drives.

"Hitachi is working closely with PMC-Sierra and other industry leading companies to develop 4Gb/s Fibre Channel into the preeminent storage interface for large enterprise customers," said Fumio Kugiya, general manager, Server Business Unit, Hitachi Global Storage Technologies. "Today's announcement marks an important development milestone and demonstrates the strength of our respective engineering teams."

"PMC-Sierra is strongly focused on enabling the 4Gb/s Fibre Channel market by working and achieving system interoperability with industry leaders like Hitachi GST," said Mark Stibitz, vice president and general manager of PMC-Sierra's Enterprise Storage Division. "Storage system equipment designers worldwide benefit from this testing by being able to confidently design 4Gb/s Fibre Channel systems with a time-to-market advantage."

About PMC-Sierra's Storage Products

PMC-Sierra offers cost-optimized products featuring best-in-class signal integrity, flexibility and diagnostics for increased system performance and management. The company provides 1G, 2G and 4G Fibre Channel disk array and system interconnect products for SAN/NAS storage and switch fabric applications. PMC-Sierra has also announced a 3G interconnect product for SAS and SATA storage systems. For more information, visit www.pmc-sierra.com/storage.

About PMC-Sierra

PMC-Sierra(TM) is a leading provider of high speed broadband communications and storage semiconductors and MIPS-based(TM) processors for Enterprise, Access, Metro Optical Transport, Storage Area Networking and Wireless network equipment. The company offers worldwide technical and sales support, including a network of offices throughout North America, Europe and Asia. The company is publicly traded on the NASDAQ Stock Market under the PMCS symbol and is included in the S&P 500 Index. For more information, visit www.pmc-sierra.com.

About Hitachi Global Storage Technologies

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies was founded in 2003 as a result of the strategic combination of Hitachi's and IBM's storage technology businesses. The company's vision is to enable users to fully engage in the digital lifestyle by providing access to large amounts of storage capacity in formats suitable for the office, on the road and in the home.

The company offers customers worldwide a comprehensive range of storage products for desktop computers, high-performance servers and mobile devices. For more information on Hitachi Global Storage Technologies, please visit the company's Web site at http://www.hitachigst.com.

About Hitachi, Ltd.

Hitachi, Ltd. (NYSE:HIT), headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, is a leading global electronics company, with approximately 326,000 employees worldwide. Fiscal 2003 (ended March 31, 2004) consolidated sales totaled 8,632.4 billion yen ($81.4 billion). The company offers a wide range of systems, products and services in market sectors, including information systems, electronic devices, power and industrial systems, consumer products, materials and financial services. For more information on Hitachi, please visit the company's Web site at www.hitachi.com.

PMC, PMCS, PMC-Sierra and "Thinking you can build on" are trademarks of PMC-Sierra, Inc. MIPS-based is a trademark of MIPS Technologies, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of the respective owners.

Note to Editors: In "10^-15," there is a caret symbol between "10" and "-15." This symbol may not appear properly in some systems.

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