Fibre Channel To PCI Express Links SAN/NAS

PMC-Sierra's Tachyon QE4 targets storage-area network (SAN) and network attached storage (NAS) applications by bridging between one or more PCI Express hosts and two or four 4-Gbit/s Fibre Channel links. Each link typically will be tied to a host processor while the PCI Express links are connected to the storage RAID control processor. A pair of Tachyon QE4 chips usually is employed if the control processor is attached to Fibre Channel disks. PMC-Sierra's SXP 36x6G normally is used if SAS drives are employed and its PM8307 can be used to provide dual-port SAS access to SATA drives. The Tachyon QE4 comes in a 544-pin flip-chip plastic ball-grid array (FC PBGA) package. It costs $225 in prototype quantities. www.pmc-sierra.com

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