- Details
- Other
Addonics Technologies today announced two new members of its Port Multiplier family, both designed to support SATA 3.0 6Gbps and greatly enhance the storage capabilities for a wide range of computer systems.
The new products are the Internal 5-port 6G Port Multiplier, which is an excellent solution for adding more drives to a computer that has limited SATA ports, and the 5-Port 6G Rack Mount Port Multiplier, which has more flexibility for large volume storage needs. As many as five hard drives, SSD or optical drives can be connected to these PMs. The hard drives or SSD drives appear as five individual drives when connecting to a Port Multiplier compatible controller. The drives can also be set up as a RAID group using the RAID software of the OS or the host controller.
- Details
- Other
Avago Technologies Limited and LSI Corporation today announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Avago will acquire LSI for $11.15 per share in an all-cash transaction valued at $6.6 billion. The acquisition creates a highly diversified semiconductor market leader with approximately $5 billion in annual revenues by adding enterprise storage to Avago’s existing wired infrastructure, wireless and industrial businesses. The combined company will be strongly positioned to capitalize on the growing opportunities created by the rapid increases in data center IP and mobile data traffic.
“This highly complementary and compelling acquisition positions Avago as a leader in the enterprise storage market and expands our offerings and capabilities in wired infrastructure, particularly system-level expertise,” stated Hock Tan, President and Chief Executive Officer of Avago. “This combination will increase the Company’s scale and diversify our revenue and customer base. In addition to these powerful strategic benefits, as we integrate LSI onto the Avago platform, we expect to drive LSI’s operating margins toward Avago’s current levels, creating significant additional value for stockholders.”
“This transaction provides immediate value to our stockholders, and offers new growth opportunities for our employees to develop a wider range of leading-edge solutions for customers,” said Abhi Talwalkar, President and Chief Executive Officer of LSI. “Our leadership positions in enterprise storage and networking, in combination with Avago, create greater scale to further drive innovations into the datacenter.”
- Details
- Other
PCI-SIG, the organization responsible for the widely adopted PCI Express® (PCIe®) industry-standard input/output (I/O) technology, today announced the release of the PCIe M.2 Specification Revision 1.0 to its members. A next-generation form factor for ultra-light and thin platforms, the latest M.2 architecture increases design flexibility to support high-end performance and enhanced data rates for power-constrained platforms. In addition, it enables the higher integration of functions onto a single form factor module solution.
As a natural progression from PCIe® Mini Card and PCIe® Half Mini Card, the smaller M.2 form factor is designed to meet future market requirements for applications in thin mobile platforms, such as tablets, portable gaming devices, smartphones and devices requiring SSDs. Its extensible design provides scalability for multiple technologies and host interfaces, including Wi-Fi®, Bluetooth®, SSD and WWAN.
“As users switch from legacy PCs to compact mobile devices, their demand for robust and power-efficient computing platforms endures,” said Al Yanes, PCI-SIG chairman and president. “The M.2 form factor offers tunable I/O technology, allowing developers to create the optimal balance of power and performance in their platform implementations.”
- Details
- Other
Organizations can now achieve a higher level of storage performance with Intel RAID RS3 controllers, powered by LSI Technology. They are specifically designed to meet the demands of I/O-intensive applications, cloud datacenters and virtualized server environments.
Businesses that use Intel RAID RS3 controllers as the basis for their storage infrastructure can achieve more than 1 million IOPs in JBOD mode. With 12Gb/s SAS-3 technology, it can accelerate business-critical applications in enterprise, Web and cloud datacenters.
- Details
- Other
The USB 3.0 Promoter Group today announced that the development of the next generation of USB connector has begun. The new USB Type-C connector, built initially on existing USB 3.1 and USB 2.0 technologies, is being developed to help enable thinner and sleeker product designs, enhance usability and provide a growth path for performance enhancements for future versions of USB. This supplement to the USB 3.1 specification is anticipated to be completed by the middle of next year.
Key characteristics of the USB Type-C connector and cable solution include:
- An entirely new design tailored to work well with emerging product designs
- New smaller size – similar in size to the existing USB 2.0 Micro-B
- Usability enhancements – users will no longer need to be concerned with plug orientation/cable direction, making it easier to plug in
- The Type-C connector and cable will support scalable power charging
- Scalability – the connector design will scale for future USB bus performance
As the new USB Type-C plug and receptacle will not directly mate with existing USB plugs and receptacles (Type-A, Type-B, Micro-B, etc.), the Type-C specification will define passive new-to-existing cables and adapters to allow users to use their existing products.
- Details
- Other
ASUS today announced Xonar U7 Echelon Edition, a compact 7.1-channel USB sound card that retains the high audio quality of the award-winning Xonar U7 and adds the military-inspired digital camouflage pattern that is unique to the Echelon range.
As well as stylish looks, ASUS engineers have also worked hard to add an impressive range of exclusive features designed to help gamers, including Sonic Radar for in-game sound visualization and Sonic Studio Pro for fine control of every audio feature.
- Details
- Other
ASUS today announced Xonar D-KARAX, a professional-grade sound card designed for singing enthusiasts that like to sing and share their songs online.
Designed by leading music-industry engineers, Xonar D-KARAX helps eager amateur singers shape their voice and indulge in the latest trend of sharing personal songs online. Xonar D-KARAX is a PCI-Express sound card offers 96KHz/24-bit playback, real-time audio processing, 7.1 audio and a 106dB SNR (signal-to-noise ratio). Singers can apply and hear audio effects in real-time with no playback lag, a sophisticated feature previously the preserve of professional recording studios.
- Details
- Other
Addonics Technologies today announced a network device for the wireless sharing of a USB drive or micro SD card or for using as a wireless hot spot for connecting wireless devices to the internet.
The WiFi Drive Adapter is ideal for numerous applications, including wireless file sharing on USB drives or micro SD cards, streaming music or video to a tablet, smart phone, MP3 player or notebook PC. Set up is fast and easy. Simply attach a USB drive or insert a micro SD card into the WiFi Drive Adapter. The data on the USB drive or the micro SD card becomes readily accessible wirelessly.
- Details
- Other
ASUS today announced Essence III, a USB digital-to-analog (DAC) converter with a fully balanced design and the latest Direct Stream Digital (DSD) playback designed for those who demand the purest audio quality and listening flexibility.
High-precision clocks and asynchronous USB virtually eliminate jitter, while separate printed-circuit boards for digital, analog and power ensure that the Essence III’s audio delivery is crystal-clear and free of crosstalk. Remote-controlled volume driven by stepped attenuators allow output levels to be set with great precision – even from the far side of the listening room.
“Essence III is more than the flagship product of our audio range,” said Ives Chiu, product manager of ASUS Multimedia Business Department, “it is a representation of how dedicated and how serious we are in the pursuit of high-quality audio. We have crafted Essence III to be just as satisfying to use as it is to hear”
- Details
- Other
Sonnet today introduced the Tango 3.0 PCIe, a combination USB 3.0 and FireWire 800 PCIe adapter card. The Tango card provides users with a simple way to add USB 3.0 and FireWire 800 connectivity to Mac Pro and Windows computers with PCIe slots, and to Thunderbolt-to-PCI Express expansion chassis. This Sonnet adapter can run bus-powered devices such as hard drives through each of its ports, and it is also backward-compatible with USB 2.0 and FireWire 400 devices.
USB 3.0, which offers a tenfold increase in data transfer speeds over USB 2.0, has become a standard interface on Mac systems and most Windows PCs, as well as external storage devices. The iconic, but now discontinued, Mac Pro tower never included native USB 3.0 ports, and many perfectly functional PCs were built with only USB 2.0 ports. Therefore, users wanting to take advantage of the new fast interface have to rely on third-party expansion cards. The Sonnet adapter provides four USB 3.0 ports: two external USB 3.0 ports and a 20-pin header for two internal USB 3.0 ports. The internal ports support panel-mount connector kits (sold separately).
FireWire 800 established its success as an interface for storage devices and professional audio equipment. Although included for years as a standard feature on most Mac computers, it has rarely been included in Windows PCs. The Tango 3.0 PCIe provides Windows PC and Mac Pro users alike a simple way to add three FireWire 800 ports to any compatible computer with an open PCIe slot.
