Product Development Kit from RedSwitch, Inc. Reduces Design Time for InfiniBand Systems.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

MILPITAS, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 4, 2002

RedSwitch, Inc.

-- Reference Design Provides Eight 4x Ports for 160 Gbits/sec of Performance

-- Application Software is Stored in Flash Memory for User Customization

RedSwitch,

Inc. today announced a product development kit for InfiniBand(TM) switch fabric that reduces the development time and cost for a wide variety of InfiniBand products. The system consists of a fully functioning eight port, 4x InfiniBand switch box along with user documentation and software.

The heart of the HDMP-2840 Product Development Kit (PDK) is RedSwitch's high-integration InfiniBand switch chip. Subnet management software from RedSwitch runs on a PowerPC processor with 64 Mbyte of memory, however any InfiniBand compliant subnet management software may be used. Application software is stored in flash memory which allows users to customize the system for their particular needs.

The PDK provides an engineer with eight 4x InfiniBand ports to which they can attach and test their InfiniBand products. The engineers can use an Ethernet (i.e., 10Base-T) or RS-232 connection on the PDK to monitor the performance of the system under test. The development kit can also be used for final testing and trouble-shooting in manufacturing.

According to Tony Chance, Director of Technical Marketing, "The HDMP-2840 Product Development Kit shows that our company is committed to providing our customers with a complete solution to their InfiniBand engineering and manufacturing needs. The PDK can be used during the design phase of any InfiniBand product, however we believe most applications of the PDK will be in designs that use our HDMP-2840 InfiniBand switch chip. The device is the industry's first with eight, full-duplex ports each running at 10 Gbits/sec (i.e., 4x links)."

Other PDK Features

The system management unit within the PDK allows for performance monitoring of the PDK's InfiniBand switch chip as well as diagnostic, control and configuration functions. The status of the product development kit and its InfiniBand ports is provided by panel-mounted LEDs and the two external I/O ports (i.e., Ethernet and RS-232). It is assumed that developers using the PDK have a host system with InfiniBand protocol or target channel adapters.

About HDMP-2840 Switch Chip

The heart of the PDK is the HDMP-2840 switch chip which is the industry's first InfiniBand switch chip with eight, full-duplex ports each running at 10 Gbits/sec (i.e., 4x links). The chip provides 160 Gbits/sec of wire-speed bandwidth and it integrates the equivalent of 32 SerDes/PHY chips. The chip is compliant with the InfiniBand Trade Association standard.

The device can eliminate up to 40 chips from the design of an 8-port, 4x InfiniBand switch. This new level of integration significantly lowers the cost and improves the reliability of InfiniBand switches which are crucial for linking peripherals in Internet routers, data centers, servers, RAID systems, disk arrays, enterprise networks, etc.

Availability and Price

The HDMP-2840 Product Development Kit (PDK) is available immediately and is priced at $10,000 in quantities of one. The system comes with four 2-meter InfiniBand, copper cables and a CD-ROM with RedSwitch's subnet management and switch driver software. The kit also includes a PDK user's manual, HDMP-2840 documentation, and subnet management documentation.

About RedSwitch, Inc.

RedSwitch was incorporated in June 2000, with headquarters in Milpitas, Calif. The company has broad switch design experience, having designed the Synfinity(TM) packet-based switches for Fujitsu. RedSwitch is a fabless semiconductor company that is focused on developing InfiniBand standard switch solutions for a broad range of customers. RedSwitch, Inc., 1815 McCandless Drive, Milpitas, CA 95035. Telephone: 408/719-4888, Fax: 408/719-4800.

More information about RedSwitch can be found on the Web at www.redswitch.com.