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TRADE NEWS: Agere Systems Selects Agilent Technologies' 93000 SOC Series Test System for Serial Attached SCSI Controller IC Development, Production Testing

Business Wire, August 31, 2004

PALO ALTO, Calif. -- Storage IC Market Leader Turns to Scalable Agilent Platform for Complex Serial I/O Testing Needs at 3.0 Gb/s Data Rate

Agilent Technologies Inc. (NYSE:A) today announced that Agere Systems (NYSE:AGR.A, AGR.B) has selected the Agilent 93000 SOC Series test system to test its next-generation Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) controller IC in development and production. Agilent was selected for its scalable platform solution, which is capable of at-speed testing of devices at the 3.0 Gb/s data rate.

"Agilent's innovative digital approach allows us to test the high-speed interface of our storage ICs at today's most demanding data rates, and also offers us a scalable platform to meet the testing requirements of the future," said Sandeep Kumar, director of test engineering for Agere. "We were able to rapidly develop a test program based on the Agilent 93000 that met our customers' needs and will help us drive the transition from parallel SCSI to SAS in the enterprise disk drive market."

The SAS controller IC leverages Agere's expertise in semiconductor and serial storage development, and is the first device to provide standards-compliant SAS operation in a single chip for hard disk drives. The drive-side controller IC incorporates a physical layer serializer-deserializer (SerDes), dual ARM(R) processors, and hard disk controller circuitry to enable dedicated, high-speed interfaces connecting multiple disk storage drives to a system bus or expander device in such storage environments as high-end workstations and server blades.

The Agilent 93000 SOC testing system includes the NP3G-XS channel option, extending Agilent's industry-leading ATE platform. The NP3G-XS delivers ultra-fast testing results, extreme low voltage differential signaling, multilevel and out-of-band signaling and accurate at-speed jitter tolerance measurements beyond a gigabit.

"Agilent is unsurpassed when it comes to testing high-speed interconnection components," said Tom Newsom, vice president and general manager of Agilent's SOC Business Unit. "Agere and its partners are pushing the envelope with storage technologies that deliver bandwidth in excess of 3.2 Gb/s. Agilent delivers a scalable, digital platform with performance and features that grow in lockstep with the technology roadmap of market leaders."

Serial interfaces such as SAS and S-ATA provide OEMs, system builders and consumers with simplicity of design, cables that are easy to route and install, and smaller cable connectors featuring improved silicon design and lower pin counts. Industry analyst firm iSuppli Corp. estimates that 250 million disk drives with integrated SAS and S-ATA interfaces will be deployed by 2005.

About the Agilent 93000 SOC Series

The Agilent 93000 SOC Series is the industry's fastest growing, lowest cost single, scalable platform with more than 800 installed systems worldwide. The Agilent 93000 SOC Series is designed to meet both the demanding performance and cost challenges of SOC testing. Models are configured to span the widest range of applications that may require ultra-high-speed digital data rates, up to 10 Gb/s, and the broadest range of mixed-signal and RF capabilities. With this range of capabilities, the 93000 SOC Series is the first choice for subcontract manufacturers and the preference for high-volume manufacturing. More information is available at www.agilent.com/see/soctest.> More information about Agilent's semiconductor test products is available at www.agilent.com/see/atenews.> About Agilent Technologies

Agilent Technologies Inc. (NYSE:A) is a global technology leader in communications, electronics, life sciences and chemical analysis. The company's 28,000 employees serve customers in more than 110 countries. Agilent had net revenue of $6.1 billion in fiscal year 2003. Information about Agilent is available on the Web at www.agilent.com.

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