LOS GATOS, Calif. -- Network security and flow classification market leader Hifn (NASDAQ:HIFN) today announced the high performance 9630 lossless data compression processor. The 9630 can compress or decompress data at up to 300 Mbytes/s, fast enough to support SCSI-3 devices and beyond. The 9630 implements Hifn's industry standard Lempel-Ziv-Stac (LZS) data compression algorithm, an essential ingredient for manufacturers of high- speed tape drives, laser printers, mass storage devices, and data communication devices.

"The 9630 compression processor reflects Hifn's commitment in the growing use of compression in non-traditional point-to-point applications to improve data rates over SONET connections, as well as Fiber Channel and IP storage networks," said Glenn Haley, product manager at Hifn, Inc. "The 9630's high-rate of compression processing is essential for the upper end of the midrange tape drive market segment, as well as the emerging virtual tape drive applications where compression is used before storing on the Hard Disk Drive."

Hifn's LZS compression algorithm has been standardized by many organizations including the IETF (RFC 2595, RFC-1974, RFC-1967) Frame Relay Forum (FRF.9) TIA/EIA (655) ANSI (X3.241), and QIC (122).

The 9630 has a pair of 64-byte FIFOs that buffer data to and from the system bus. A 4K-byte SRAM is used to store the compressed data while the output is being verified. These FIFOs allow both engines to operate at full speed over the system bus. The 9630 uses DMA handshaking signals to control the movement of data into and out of the Source and Destination FIFOs. The 9630 has a fault-detection feature that verifies the results of the compression engine in real time.

The 9630 system bus interface supports both register I/O and single-cycle burst DMA transfers. The system interface is 16-bits wide, separate input and output data buses, and operates at 150 MHz.

The 9630 is packaged in a 144-pin TQFP and will commence sampling in February 2004. Pricing for the 9630 is $49 in quantities of 10K.

Hifn Inc.