EMC, IBM, LTX, Media Fusion, National Semiconductor, Network Appliance and Texas Instruments Join HyperTransport Technology Consortium

SUNNYVALE, Calif., August 11, 2003 - The HyperTransport™ Technology Consortium, the nonprofit industry organization that manages the HyperTransport technology specification, today announced that seven industry leaders and two academic institutions have joined the Consortium. The new industry members include EMC, IBM, LTX, Media Fusion, National Semiconductor, Network Appliance and Texas Instruments. 

The Consortium has also created two new membership classes to allow broader participation in the Consortium. In addition to current Promoter, Contributor and Adopter classes, the Consortium has added Advisor and Academic classes. The Advisor membership allows firms to participate in the HyperTransport Consortium without exchanging IP rights and patents while the Academic membership is free and is open to any accredited educational institution. Academic membership provides access to the HyperTransport technology and IP for educational purposes. 

"We are delighted to have such key industry leaders join the Consortium," said Gabriele Sartori, president of the HyperTransport Technology Consortium. "HyperTransport technology is now firmly entrenched in the electronics industry and we look forward to their participation in shaping the evolution of HyperTransport technology to meet the bandwidth and performance requirements of next generation systems. These new members strengthen the technology's position as the universal, royalty-free, chip-to-chip connectivity technology of choice for today's systems. Their participation will buttress analysts' predictions that HyperTransport port shipments will grow from over 30 million ports in 2003 to over 200 million ports in 2006."

"HyperTransport is one of many I/O technologies that is rapidly becoming a standard chip-to-chip communications technology for high-performance processors and subsystems," stated Lisa Su, director of Power PC and emerging products at IBM Microelectronics. "We are pleased to provide HyperTransport along with other leading I/O technologies to our customers requiring low latency and high bandwidth."

"HyperTransport technology is gaining traction in the marketplace as the first of the high-bandwidth I/O technologies to reach volume shipments," says Jim Turley, senior analyst at SiliconInsider. "With major industry participants such as IBM, National Semiconductor and Texas Instruments joining the Consortium, it seems that the Consortium has widened its reach across the entire semiconductor industry. With system makers like EMC on board, it is likely that any new developments will support computing, communications and storage needs from both a chip and system-level perspective."

HyperTransport technology is licensed on a royalty-free basis through the HyperTransport Technology Consortium. It is a universal chip-to-chip I/O connectivity technology that provides extremely high bandwidth, frequency scalability, low-cost implementation and full software compatibility with the legacy Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) and PCI-X I/O technologies.

With over 45 HyperTransport technology-based products and services already announced, a Compatibility Program that ensures interoperability between devices, and the specification's preservation of the vast software investments and infrastructure that already exist for PCI today, HyperTransport technology has established a significant footprint in a number of key market segments. The HyperTransport product portfolio includes tunnel, bridge, graphic and switch chips from AMD, ALi, Alliance Semiconductor, NVIDIA, PLX Technology, and VIA Technologies; programmable-logic devices from Altera and Xilinx; processors and security processors from AMD, Broadcom, Cavium, Hifn, PMC-Sierra, and Transmeta; IP cores from Altera, GDA Technologies, Nurlogic, and Xilinx; BIOS software from AMI and Phoenix Technologies; verification and test tools from 0-In Design Automation, Agilent, FuturePlus, GDA Technologies, Schlumberger, Teradyne and TransEDA; and training courses and an architecture reference manual from Mindshare. For a full product listing, please visit the HyperTransport Consortium's web site at: http://www.hypertransport.org/featuredproducts/products.html. 

About HyperTransport™ Technology
HyperTransport universal, royalty-free, chip-to-chip interconnect technology replaces and improves upon existing multilevel buses used  in systems such as personal computers, servers and embedded systems  while maintaining software compatibility with PCI I/O technology. HyperTransport technology delivers a maximum 12.8 GB/second aggregate bandwidth using easy to manufacture dual, unidirectional point-to-point links. Enhanced 1.2V low-power LVDS signaling and dual-data rate data transfers deliver increased data throughput while minimizing signal crosstalk and EMI. HyperTransport interconnect technology employs a packet-based data protocol to eliminate many sideband signals (control and command signals) and supports asymmetric, variable width data paths.

About the HyperTransport™ Technology Consortium
The HyperTransport Technology Consortium is a non-profit organization managed by its members that is dedicated to promoting HyperTransport technology as an open, freely available industry specification for high bandwidth chip-to-chip communications. Membership in the consortium is open to any industry participant for a modest administrative fee and includes the right to royalty-free use of HyperTransport technology Intellectual Property. More information can be obtained from the HyperTransport Technology Consortium website at www.hypertransport.org.  Advanced Micro Devices, Alliance Semiconductor, Apple Computer, Broadcom Corporation, Cisco Systems, NVIDIA, PMC-Sierra, Sun Microsystems, and Transmeta are promoter members and comprise the Executive Committee of the HyperTransport Technology Consortium. Companies interested in HyperTransport technology are invited to join the consortium. Consortium members pay modest annual dues and receive a royalty-free license to use the HyperTransport IP of the consortium members, gain access to additional technical documentation and may attend consortium meetings and events. To become a member, visit the consortium web site at www.hypertransport.org.