AMCC Announces the New QT2055 10GBASE-KR PHY, Increasing Today’s Backplane Bandwidth By a Factor of Four
Applied Micro Circuits Corporation (NASDAQ:AMCC), a global leader in embedded Power Architecture™ processing, transport and storage solutions, today announced the QT2055, a XAUI-to-10GBASE-KR physical layer IC. The QT2055 is the first product in the industry developed for 10 Gigabit Ethernet serial backplane connectivity. It is based on the recently completed IEEE® Std. 802.3ap-2007 standard. QT2055 applications include blade servers and high-performance computing systems, as well as telecom and datacom platform backplanes. The QT2055 will be featured in a live demonstration at AMCC’s booth # 663 and at the Backplane Ethernet Pod in the Ethernet Alliance® booth # 2265 at Interop® 2007 in Las Vegas May 22 — 24.
“Our new QT2055 IC strengthens AMCC’s market leadership position by offering the industry’s broadest portfolio of 10 Gigabit Ethernet PHY products,” said Mitch Kahn, vice president of marketing for AMCC. “This introduction reinforces AMCC’s commitment to the enterprise Ethernet market and delivers a cost effective, robust and best-in-class solution that enables our customers to leverage 10 Gigabit speeds over the backplane.”
“Shipment of 10GE ports doubled last year and 10GE demand continues unabated. In a recent study we did, respondents planned large increases in the number of 10GE ports in their networks,” stated Matthias Machowinski, Directing Analyst, Enterprise Voice & Data at Infonetics Research. “Datacenters will be a key area for these deployments and in order to avoid bottlenecks and process at that speed, organizations will need to upgrade server to server connections and blade server clusters, which will drive demand for 10GBASE-KR.”
The Ethernet Alliance booth demonstration will feature a pair of AMCC’s QT2055 Evaluation Boards connected to a state-of-the-art reference I-Tracbackplane from Molex® and the Z-Pack Max™ backplane from Tyco Electronics®. The QT2055s will utilize the 10GBASE-KR standard for backplane serial connectivity between the two boards driving error-free traffic at 10 Gigabit speeds.
AMCC will also demonstrate a backplane Ethernet ecosystem in their booth. A Tehuti Networks™ TN3016 controller will transmit data to an AMCC QT2055 Evaluation Board. The 10GBASE-KR signal from the QT2055 is sent across the backplane to an AMCC/Fulcrum reference switch platform based on Fulcrum’s FocalPoint FM2224 24-port 10 Gigabit Ethernet Switch IC and AMCC’s QT2035S 10Gbps SFP+ PHY. The Fulcrum switch will forward the data to another Tehuti Networks controller. The result is a complete end-to-end, server-switch-server 10 Gigabit Ethernet network solution.
“With this announcement from AMCC, the ecosystem for 10GBASE-KR is now in place and ready for widespread industry adoption,” stated Ryan Price, product manager, Molex Incorporated. “Our new backplane combined with AMCC’s QT2055 chip is a compelling solution for our customers who want to drive 10 Gigabit Ethernet capacity through the backplane at lower costs.”
The QT2055 is a XAUI-to-10Gb/s PHY IC designed for single lane 10 Gigabit Ethernet backplane serial connectivity with a reach of up to 1 meter. Its features include:
Compliance with IEEE Std. 802.3ap
Low power consumption
Integrated high performance adaptive equalizer functionality
Auto-negotiation between 1 Gigabit and 10 Gigabit Ethernet operation for interoperability with existing 1G devices
Optional Forward Error Correction (FEC)
Compatible with open standard (ATCA platforms, for example) as well as proprietary backplanes
Embedded microcontroller for customization to a variety of backplane environments
Automatic compensation for backplane impairments
“The QT2055 increases the bandwidth per lane of today’s backplane by a factor of four,” Kahn continued. “This provides per-lane connectivity for the blade and modular platforms beyond what competing standards-based technologies can offer. Increasing the bandwidth per-lane will significantly reduce the backplane and mid-plane routing constraints while permitting these systems to be competitive.”
The QT2055 is sampling now to alpha customers. General availability is scheduled for Q4 2007.
About AMCC
AMCC is a global leader in embedded Power Architecture™ processing, optical transport and storage solutions. Our products enable the development of converged IP-based networks offering high-speed secure data, high-definition video and high-quality voice for carrier, metropolitan, access and enterprise applications. AMCC provides networking equipment vendors with industry-leading communications processing, Ethernet, SONET and switch fabric solutions. AMCC is also the leading vendor of high-port count SATA RAID controllers enabling low-cost, high-performance, high-capacity storage. AMCC’s corporate headquarters are located in Sunnyvale, California. Sales and engineering offices are located throughout the world. For further information regarding AMCC, please visit our web site at http://www.amcc.com.
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements may be identified by words such as expects, anticipates, plans, believes, estimates, will or words of similar meaning. Such forward-looking statements, including statements relating to the products discussed in this press release, are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, including the risk that the products may not be successfully or timely developed, completed or manufactured or achieve market acceptance, risks relating to general economic conditions, as well as the risks and uncertainties set forth in the Company’s Annual Report on Form 10-K, and in the Company’s other SEC filings. As a result of these risks and uncertainties, actual results may differ materially from these forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements contained in this press release are made as of the date hereof and AMCC does not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future developments or otherwise.
AMCC is a registered trademark of Applied Micro Circuits Corporation. Power Architecture is a trademark licensed by Power.org. Molex is a registered trademark of Molex Incorporated. Z-PACK MAX is a trademark of Tyco, Inc. All other names are for informational purposes and may be trademarks of their respective owners.