INTEL
DEVELOPER FORUM CONFERENCE, SAN JOSE, Calif., Aug. 22 -- Seagate Technology
(NYSE: SEG), APT Technologies, Inc. and Vitesse Semiconductor Corporation
(Nasdaq: VTSS) today unveiled the first Serial ATA disc drive, giving
a glimpse into the future of ATA disc drive technology.
The drive is natively attached to an Intel Pentium 4 processor system
through an APT Serial ATA PCI Host Bus Adapter, featuring a 1.5 Gbps
transfer rate. The prototype demonstration combines technologies from
Seagate, APT, Intel Corporation and Vitesse. It features a Seagate disc
drive with its Serial ATA board, using APT's Serial ATA Link and Transport
layers logic and Vitesse's 1.5 Gbs CMOS transceiver, attached via Serial
ATA to APT's Serial ATA to PCI host bus adapter.
This new technology will allow for platform cost reductions and performance
improvements while supporting a seamless transition from Parallel ATA
technology. Serial ATA will supply storage interface headroom for many
generations to come, beginning with 1.5 Gbps, scalable to 2x, 4x and
beyond.
"Seagate
is proud to demonstrate at this early stage that Serial ATA technology
will soon be ready for implementation, and that the industry's technology
leaders are working together to make it happen,"
said Tom Porter, Seagate executive vice president and chief technical
officer. "There are many hardware and software engineers who attend
the Forum to set their blueprint plans for the coming year and we're
happy to provide them the first glimpse into the Serial ATA future."
"Vitesse is pleased to demonstrate Serial ATA Physical Layer solutions
with early adopters of this exciting new technology," said Bob Rumer,
vice president of the SAN Products Group at Vitesse Semiconductor. "By
combining expertise from APT Technologies, Intel, Seagate and Vitesse
we will be able to provide the industry's first complete Serial ATA
IC solutions."
"Intel is thrilled to see this technology being deployed. This offers
the industry a transition path for ATA in the near future. This prototype
demonstrates that the industry continues to progress in delivering Serial
ATA solutions. Serial ATA is becoming a reality," said Jeff Ravencraft,
strategic marketing manager at Intel Architecture Labs (IAL) and Serial
ATA Working Group chairman.
"The development of this prototype is key to illustrating that the
industry is on track to deliver Serial ATA. We have also demonstrated
widespread O/S compatibility running the setup under Windows* 98, Windows
NT, Windows 2000, Red Hat Linux* and Solaris* 8 with both ATA and ATAPI
devices," said Jim Rubino, president and CEO of APT Technologies.
"Our ability to demonstrate the viability of technology is another
step toward ensuring a smooth transition from parallel ATA/100 to Serial
ATA."
Seagate, APT, Intel and Vitesse are among the members of the Serial
ATA Working Group developing the Serial ATA storage interface specification
for the next-generation computing platform. This interface is used to
connect storage devices, such as hard discs, DVDs and CD-R/Ws, to the
motherboard and is the replacement for today's Parallel ATA physical
storage interface. Serial ATA is compatible with existing ATA software
drivers and will run standard operating systems without modification.
The Intel Developer Forum Conference, running August 22-24, 2000 at
the San Jose Convention Center, is where developers of hardware and
software find out what they must know to optimize applications and to
ensure their solutions remain compatible with the latest developments.
A special session on Wednesday, August 23 will review in detail how
Serial ATA technology works and will feature a demonstration of Serial
ATA running standard unmodified operating systems.
Seagate is a leading storage partner for the PC, consumer electronics
and enterprise storage industries with the number one market share in
sales of ATA, SCSI and Fibre Channel disc drives. Seagate is a manufacturer
of disc drives, magnetic discs and read-write heads, an innovator in
tape drives, Storage Area Network (SAN) solutions and a leading developer
of Business Intelligence software. Seagate can be found around the globe
and at http://www.seagate.com .
APT Technologies is a driving force behind Serial ATA and other advanced
peripherals technologies. They are also a leading supplier of mass storage
IP and Serial ATA products. Established in Santa Cruz, California in
1996, APT is a design house that specializes in system level design,
hardware and software development and strategic marketing for the mass
storage industry. The company is involved in product development, contract
engineering, product planning and strategic marketing. APT Technologies,
Inc. is a privately held corporation. Learn more about APT on the web
at: http://www.apt-tech.com.
Vitesse Semiconductor Corporation (VTSS) is a leading designer and supplier
of innovative, high performance semiconductors utilizing state-of-the-art
processes -- for the communications equipment manufacturers of next
generation DWDM and optical networking, as well as storage area networking
ICs and enclosure management products that monitor and communicate critical
reliability and availability information. The Company's products address
the needs of Core, Access, Optical and Enterprise network equipment
manufacturers who demand a combination of high speed, high complexity
and low power dissipation. Vitesse is headquartered in Camarillo, California,
and manufactures volume ICs at its two fabrication facilities in Camarillo
and Colorado Springs. Company/product information can be found on the
web at http://www.vitesse.com.
