Vitesse Intros Two GigE Switches

CAMARILLO, Calif. -- Vitesse Semiconductor Corp. (Nasdaq:VTSS) today announced two new Gigabit Ethernet switches. Gatwick(TM) is the industry's first Layer 3, 24-port tri-speed (10/100/1000) plus 2-port 10 Gigabit Switch/Router Integrated Circuit (IC). Fairoaks(TM) is a cost competitive Layer 2+, 24-port tri-speed plus 2-port 10 Gigabit Switch IC.

As the industry accelerates toward a Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) transition and the growth of new services such as Voice over IP and video streaming increase, ever higher productivity, lower latency, and higher bandwidth capabilities are needed to address LAN traffic bottlenecks. Combine these factors with the growth of Gigabit-enabled nodes, and the IT industry is faced with a "pent-up demand" from the end user to implement and support a complete corporate Gigabit infrastructure including PCs equipped with Multi-Gigahertz processors, storage capacity in the hundreds of Gigabytes, and the proliferation of Gigabit Ethernet network connections.

Targeting the network infrastructure, Gatwick (VSC7310) and Fairoaks (VSC7306) are designed to enable the migration of Fast Ethernet Local Area Networking (LAN) switch boxes to Gigabit Ethernet speeds. These products offer the highest performance and port density available in a single switch IC in the industry today, while lowering the overall system cost. When using Gatwick or Fairoaks in a system, the required bill of material (BOM) chip count for a 48-port switch system is reduced from five to two components, a content savings of 60 percent.

"Offering high port density and performance at comparable prices to Fast Ethernet is a key factor to accelerating Gigabit Ethernet adoption in the corporate infrastructure," said Shahriar Agahian, Enterprise switch marketing director at Vitesse. "Vitesse continues to be the first to deliver production-ready Gigabit Ethernet IC products to the market, and with the introduction of Gatwick and Fairoaks, it extends our offerings to cost effective Layer 2 and 3 products."

Offering wire speed Layer 2 switching, non-blocking Layer 3 routing and the ability to forward traffic at an unprecedented 156 Million packets/second, these Gigabit Switch-on-Chip solutions combine the highest level of integration and functionality in their class. Gatwick and Fairoaks support advanced features such as deep packet and programmable classification for optimizing Quality of Service. They can also differentiate packets and prioritize them based on information inside the packet including Differential Service Code Points (DSCP) and VLAN priorities (IEEE 802.1p). All of these features are essential for handling the ever-increasing bandwidth requirements in the Enterprise LAN.

To further increase system performance and productivity, the products provide jumbo packet support allowing packet sizes greater than 10 Kbytes to traverse the network as well as a flexible link aggregation feature that permits multiple links to be seen as a "virtual" single line. Gatwick and Fairoaks have two uplink ports of 10 Gigabit and require no external memory or CAMs. Additionally, two of either ICs can be directly connected together to produce a 48-port switch system in a standard 19 inch, 1U high form factor.

Gatwick and Fairoaks include a complete managed reference system solution targeted at the Desktop and Workgroup switch markets. Accompanying these products is a comprehensive library of system hardware and software manuals and other supporting documentation to assist with rapid design and validation. Gatwick and Fairoaks will be in full production in December 2004. In volume quantities, Gatwick is priced at $180 each and Fairoaks at $140 per unit.

Vitesse Semiconductor Corp.