APPLICATIONS

Technology Demonstration on Intel Servers Showcases Fastest Interconnect and Storage I/O Performance: Mellanox Technologies announced the demonstration of a 40Gb/s (Gigabit-per-second) InfiniBand server-to-server connection over a copper cable using advanced versions of the recently announced ConnectX IB Host Channel Adapter (HCA). These are the first I/O adapters to support the increased performance of PCI Express 2.0 – a doubling of bus speeds expected to be integrated in server and storage platforms over the next year. Today, Mellanox-based 10 and 20Gb/s InfiniBand products provide leading connectivity performance for multi-core and virtualized server and storage systems in data centers as well as an increasing number of the world’s most powerful supercomputers, which are demanding higher I/O throughput. With this 40Gb/s connectivity demonstration, Mellanox displays its leading technology and design expertise to deliver cutting-edge interconnect performance based on the standard interconnect specifications. “This 40Gb/s demonstration is strong evidence that InfiniBand will continue to provide connectivity performance leadership for the industry’s most demanding computing and storage applications, and it’s software compatible with the InfiniBand installed base,” said Shai Cohen, vice president of operations and engineering at Mellanox Technologies. “It also shows our robust SerDes design expertise which is critical to deliver high-speed signals over cables, in addition to our leading ConnectX IB adapters that are architected to take full advantage of the increased performance offered by PCI Express 2.0.” Key technical highlights of this demonstration include: * The first 40Gb/s server-to-server and server-to-storage connectivity based on industry-standard specifications * The first implementation of the InfiniBand Quad-Data-Rate specification (ratified in 2004) which defines 10GHz SerDes data rates per lane (4 lanes per InfiniBand port) over a copper cable * The first I/O adapter that fully utilizes the PCI Express x8 2.0 interface operating at 5Gb/s per lane which provides a matching 40Gb/s processor host interface in Intel’s Stoakley server featuring the Seaburg chipset “Intel’s high performance multi-core processor based servers with PCI Express 2.0 technology and high speed PCIe 2.0 I/O adapters such as the Mellanox ConnectX IB InfiniBand 40Gb/s solution will continue to provide the optimal performance-balanced systems for the world’s most challenging applications,” said Jim Pappas, Director of Technology Initiatives for Intel’s Digital Enterprise Group. “We are working with Mellanox and the industry to ensure future technology compatibility, robustness and optimize for maximum performance as we roll out the Stoakley and other PCI Express 2.0 enabled servers.” 10 and 20Gb/s ConnectX IB InfiniBand HCA silicon devices and adapter cards are available today, and versions with support for the increased performance of PCI Express 2.0 are expected in the same timeframe as Intel Stoakley platforms later this year. 40Gb/s ConnectX IB products are expected to reach the market through OEM channels during 2008. Visit Mellanox Technologies at the Intel Developer Forum, Beijing - April 17-19, 2007 The technology demonstration can be viewed at Mellanox’s booth (BOOTH #001) from April 17-19, during exhibit hours.