Force10 Networks Chooses Ample Communications' Ethernet MAC IC for Its Gigabit Ethernet Line Cards; The Two Companies Cooperated on Device Definition

Business Wire, Feb 28, 2006

FREMONT, Calif. -- Ample Communications, a leading provider of communications silicon for wire line network systems, today announced that Force10 Networks has deployed products using Ample's Harrier multiport Ethernet MAC IC. Force10 is using Harrier to provide the high Gigabit Ethernet density of the TeraScale E-Series family of switch/routers.

The Harrier product family is the industry-leading triple speed multiport Ethernet MAC for line rate and oversubscribed applications. Force10 is using the devices on every 10/100/1000 Mbps line card for high-density line aggregation. The company achieves industry leading, port density per line card because of Harrier's small footprint and low power consumption. Force10 and Ample worked in close partnership on the product development to assure the most efficient silicon level solution allowing Force10 to deliver unsurpassed system performance.

"In high performance networks, density is critical to ensuring ease of management and lower total cost of network ownership," said Michael Laudon, director of hardware engineering for Force10 Networks. "The Ample Harrier MAC has the small form factor and more importantly, the low power consumption we needed to set a new industry standard for density and provide our customers with the scalable performance they require in their networks."

Leveraging the flexibility and capabilities of Ample's Harrier, Force10 introduced the industry's only 90-port 10 Gigabit Ethernet line card. With support for 14 line cards per system, the Force10 TeraScale E-Series switch/routers can support an industry-leading 1,260 Gigabit Ethernet ports.

"Working with Force10 is a great partnership for us," said Marek Tlalka, vice president of marketing for Ample Communications. "They provided us with system level expertise and visibility to the needs of end user -- that combined with Ample's silicon level expertise allowed us to deliver best in class, optimized devices for switching and routing applications. We have worked with Force10 in the past and look forward to continuing to work with them in the future."

Ample Communications

Ample Communications is a leading supplier of high-speed Ethernet and SONET silicon for enterprise and metropolitan area network equipment OEMs. Wide customer acceptance at Tier 1 and Tier 2 OEMs has resulted in more than 50 design wins for its 10 Megabit- to 40 Gigabit-per-second SONET and Ethernet silicon. www.amplecomm.com