Oxford Semiconductor First to Market with USB/FireWire Dual SATA Storage Controller; Embedded Encryption Safeguards External Data

Business Wire, Feb 28, 2006

MILPITAS, Calif. -- Oxford Semiconductor Inc., a leading provider of high-performance connectivity solutions for consumer, storage and multimedia applications, today announced the industry's first configurable USB/FireWire dual SATA storage controller with encryption. The only SATA storage controller to feature an embedded encryption engine, the OXUF924DSE from Oxford Semiconductor enables external storage manufacturers to provide users with the option of highly robust data security. By integrating hardware-enabled encryption, the controller also ensures that high data transfer speeds are maintained, at in excess of 80Mbytes/sec.

Bridging between dual SATA disks and USB2.0, FireWire400 and FireWire800 ports, the OXUF924DSE offers real-time 128-bit encryption to the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES). Supporting secure token, software password and biometric (fingerprint) sensor encryption authentication methods, the chip provides designers with the flexibility to create multiple storage products from a single hardware platform.

To simplify new product development and reduce time to market, the OXUF924DSE shares a common software base with all other devices in Oxford's market-leading range of USB and FireWire combination storage controllers. In addition, the chip is backed by a comprehensive software development kit, an evaluation board and a selection of encrypted storage reference designs.

Storage methodologies supported by the chip's dual SATA disk interface include disk striping (RAID0), disk mirroring (RAID1) and disk spanning. In striping and spanning modes up to four disks can be managed, allowing high-reliability, high-capacity storage solutions to be achieved.

The OXUF924DSE features an embedded FireWire PHY interface and Link layer operating at up to 800Mbits/sec and uses hardware acceleration to achieve industry-leading data read and data write performance, irrespective of data block size. The IEEE1394b PHY offers backwards compatibility with the IEEE1394a standard.

The chips' 480Mbits/sec USB2.0 Link and PHY cater for full and high-speed USB operating modes and using the mass storage device protocol ensure fastest possible read and write transfers. The interface is backwards compatible with USB1.1 and is supported by an integral 18Kbyte data cache.

ARM7 processor based and integrating 8Kbyte of closely coupled RAM, a 1Mbyte external flash interface and 10 GPIOs, the OXUF924DSE provides external storage designers with significant opportunities for product differentiation. A 12Mbits/sec embedded UART is provided for firmware code development and debug, and field upgrades are simple to implement via the FireWire and USB interfaces.

About Oxford Semiconductor

Oxford Semiconductor designs and markets high-performance connectivity solutions for the storage, multimedia communication, computing, and industrial markets. Founded in 1992, Oxford is a privately owned company with headquarters in Milpitas. Oxford recently acquired TransDimension, a fabless semiconductor company based in Irvine, Calif. TransDimension provides USB connectivity solutions and software for embedded applications.

As the market leader in IEEE1394 (FireWire) and USB interface controllers for direct attached storage applications, Oxford Semiconductor has shipped more than 10 million devices, and today supplies all of the world's major external storage manufacturers.

Oxford Semiconductor also has a strong reputation in high-speed serial communication chips, and offers complete solutions for bridging between a wide range of standard computer interfaces.

Through its FireWire audio controllers, Oxford Semiconductor has led the development of breakout boxes, external sound cards and multi-channel speaker systems, providing laptop users with quality sound for the very first time. More information about Oxford Semiconductor can be found at http://www.oxsemi.com.