Agilent Ships New Tachyon Chip

PALO ALTO, Calif. -- Agilent Technologies (NYSE:A) today announced an integrated circuit (IC) that continues the company's leadership in the Fibre Channel controller market for storage networking. Agilent's 2 Gb/s, dual-channel Tachyon DX2 Fibre Channel Controller requires no external memory and is the only single-chip, dual-channel solution that supports the new, high-performance PCI-X bus architecture. The new product offers manufacturers of storage networking equipment the highest level of performance(1) while saving board space and reducing costs.

The Tachyon DX2 controller (part number HPFC-5400A) processes and controls dual, 2 Gb/s Fibre Channel data streams with a single chip. The Tachyon architecture requires no external memory, unlike competitive offerings that employ multiple chips and therefore use more circuit board space and require additional design time. The Tachyon DX2 is also the only dual-channel solution that supports the new, high-performance PCI-X bus architecture, which delivers bus speeds up to 133 MHz.

"We've shipped over 1.5 million Tachyon ICs," said Bob Whitson, worldwide marketing manager of Agilent's Storage Networking Division. "The Tachyon DX2 chip extends our leadership in the 2 Gb/s market by boosting performance and throughput while lowering cost per port and saving precious board space."

Agilent Technologies Inc.