Galileo seeks to crack wide area net market

Electronic News, June 9, 1997 by Peter Brown

San Jose, Calif.--Galileo Technology, which traditionally has focused on local area network (LAN) products, is plunging into the wide area network (WAN) market with the introduction of the GT-96010 remote access coprocessor designed to work with Intel's i960 and i486 embedded processor families.

The remote access coprocessor is a joint effort between Intel and Galileo. Galileo's engineers worked with Intel to define a feature set for the device so that it would enhance the connectivity of PCs and servers. Galileo saw an opening in the WAN market for another player given the current diverse marketplace and, according to market research reports, the substantial chance for growth.

The GT-96010 marks the initial step for the company into the WAN marketplace. During the next 12 to 18 months the company plans to utilize the technology that developed the GT-96010 to expand its remote access products portfolio and continue to leverage its position.

"With the GT-96010 device, Galileo is doing what it does best--integrating complete data communications subsystems into silicon," said Manuel Alba, Galileo's president. "We looked at the entire problem of building an edge router or remote access box, and developed a solution that provides more than just peripheral I/O. The GT-96010 integrates not just the serial WAN engines, but also the essential core logic and LAN interfaces needed to build a real-world system. It is this systems-centric approach that sets Galileo apart from the pack."

The GT-96010 replaces five to 10 components that would normally have to be used in a traditional WAN device and is claimed to have a performance level twice that of CPU-based WAN devices, according to Barry Gray, Galileo's director of product marketing. The device integrates a built-in protocol that allows the CPU to run independent of the coprocessor, saving CPU horsepower for other tasks within the system. The coprocessor is targeted at high performance scaleable routers, WAN switches and remote access drivers, he added.

According to Mr. Gray, the company has sold over half-a-million Ethernet ports in its existence and expects to have shipped a total of more than a million by the end of this year. Mr. Gray said Galileo will utilize this revenue to promote and market current and future WAN products.

"We are focusing on growing markets that we have never tried to move into before," said Mr. Gray. "As technology advances and new processes become available we see these growing markets open up to where we could be a significant player in the game if we had the right technology. This is such a case."

The GT-96010 is a hardware-based WAN access platform that supports a glueless connection to Intel's i960Jx/Rx family, Galileo said. The device is sampling priced at $29.95 in 10,000-unit quantities. The evaluation board is priced at $2,495.

"The expected emergence of xDSL as a high-bandwidth alternative to ISDN offers problems and opportunities alike for vendors and end-users," said Mitch Kahn, Galileo's VP of marketing. "The problem is that tradtional WAN access systems are unable to support field-upgrades, and this forces users to invest in entirely new systems to interface to new communications technologies. GT-96010-based systems take advantage of the increased performance and support low-cost field upgradability to allow users to migrate painlessly from older communications protocols."

Galileo said because the coprocessor is cascadable in design, up to eight devices can work together utilizing a single processor. This allows an inexpensive PCI chip to convert the GT-96010 into a PCI peripheral.

Galileo has plans to introduce a PCI adapter card to be used in I2O architecture and server-based applications by the end of this year. In addition, the company plans to roll out in 3Q97 a port to WindRiver's VxWorks/Tornado RTOS development environment.