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TRADE NEWS: Agilent Technologies Ships 4 Millionth Tachyon Fibre Channel Controller IC

Business Wire, Nov 17, 2004

PALO ALTO, Calif. -- Industry's Most Widely Used Controller Increases Performance, Reduces Cost for Storage OEMs

Agilent Technologies Inc. (NYSE:A) today announced it has shipped more than 4 million Tachyon Fibre Channel controller ICs since production began in 1995. Agilent's Tachyon protocol controller ICs, the most widely used in the industry, are available in single-, dual-, and four-port configurations at speeds of up to 4 Gb/s. They offer storage OEMs both high levels of performance and reduced board space and costs.

This milestone demonstrates the value of both Tachyon and Fibre Channel as leading storage technologies. While there are many storage options, the rate of Fibre Channel SAN solutions is accelerating in both enterprise and small and midsize business market segments.

"The Tachyon brand has become an industry standard with more than 5.3 million ports in operation and more than 50 percent market share among disk array manufacturers," said Erik Ottem, marketing director of the Input/Output Solutions Division in Agilent's Semiconductor Products Group. "Agilent's recent introduction of an industry-first 4 Gb/s, four-port Tachyon controller with PCI Express enables breakthrough bandwidth and IOPS performance. The QX4 uses the same programming interface as earlier Tachyon products, preserving existing firmware/software investments and speeding time to market."

The 4 Gb/s Tachyon dual-port DX4 and four-port QX4 controllers support 4, 2 and 1 Gb/s data transfer rates and offer an easy upgrade to 4 Gb/s speeds while allowing design re-use for existing customers. Agilent provides an extensive API tool set with its Tachyon software development kit, including sample drivers to enable new customers to quickly develop software solutions. Agilent Tachyon controllers are part of the industry's broadest solution set for Fibre Channel, including fiber-optic transceivers, physical layer ICs, board-level solutions and test equipment.

The Agilent Tachyon controller's proven state-machine architecture easily scales to 8 and 10 Gb/s. The architecture provides numerous independent functional blocks, which concurrently process inbound data, outbound data, and control and commands in hardware. The result is simultaneous, parallel processing of inbound data, outbound data, and hardware control and commands to maximize bandwidth and minimize latency and I/O overhead.

Agilent Storage Networking Solutions

Agilent is a leading supplier of Fibre Channel component, board and test solutions. No other vendor offers protocol, physical layer and fiber-optic components combined with leading-edge signal and protocol testing. More than half of all storage-networked arrays use Agilent components. More information is available at www.agilent.com/view/storage.> 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 $7.2 billion in fiscal year 2004. Information about Agilent is available on the Web at www.agilent.com.

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