|
|
SANTA CLARA, Calif., May 22 /PRNewswire/ -- Lucent Technologies (NYSE: LU - news) Microelectronics Group, the world leader in communications semiconductors, today announced a four-host universal serial bus (USB) peripheral component interconnect (PCI) board. The Quadrabus(TM) Add-in Card gives PC manufacturers, value-added resellers and computer retailers a vehicle to quickly meet their growing needs for more USB bandwidth at a lower cost.
The card provides an economical way to overcome the bandwidth limitations en-countered when consumers connect high bandwidth devices such as PC video cameras and USB speakers, without compromising the performance of other USB devices such as printers, scanners, modems, or external disk drives. Most PCs today have only one USB host on the system board and the rapid growth of USB peripherals has resulted in a bottleneck on single host systems.
``The product is a turnkey solution that will enable our customers to get to market two-to-three months faster than if they designed a board themselves,'' said Dan Devine, USB product manager with Lucent's Microelectronics Group. ``Today, customers need a complete technology solution, one that has been thoroughly tested and proven-in. And, because the Lucent Quadrabus is ready to be incorporated into their product designs, customers' up-front design costs will be far less.''
This add-in card incorporates Lucent's USS344 Quadrabus IC, which integrates four USB1.1 hosts in a single chip. Each host supports a full 12 megabits per second (Mbps) of bandwidth on each port, for a total USB host bandwidth of 48 Mbps.
``Our research shows a continuing increase in the number of USB peripherals per PC,'' said Mark Kirstein, vice president of research at Cahners In-Stat Group. ``Lucent's USB solution provides users with additional USB bandwidth if their systems have only one USB host.''
A single USB host PC no longer provides sufficient capacity to support that level of demand. There will be more peripherals, as well as higher bandwidth peripherals, and appliances that stream audio and video as well. When this occurs, operating systems may display an error message when users exceed USB bandwidth.
With the USS344 on a PCI Card, retail customers immediately get more ports and more bandwidth at a similar retail price of a standalone hub. Lucent's card is Windows Microsoft Hardware Quality Labs tested, and provides a migration path to Lucent's USB 2.0 host capability.
The USS344 Quadrabus Add-in Card is sampling now. Production quantities will be available late in this year's second quarter. Unit pricing will be US$15.80 in quantities of 50,000.
For more product information, customers may call the Microelectronics Group Customer Response Center, 800-372-2447, Dept. N42 (in Canada, 800-553-2448, Dept. N42; fax number 1-610-712-4106 (especially for callers outside of North America) or write to Lucent Technologies, Room 30L-15P-BA, 555 Union Boulevard, Allentown, Pa. 18103. Information is also available on the web at www.lucent.com/micro/usb.
Lucent's Microelectronics Group designs and manufacturers integrated circuits and optoelectronic components for the computer and communications industries. Additional information about the Microelectronics Group is available from its web site at http://www.lucent.com/micro.
Lucent Technologies, headquartered in Murray Hill, N.J., USA, designs and delivers the systems, software, silicon and services for next-generation communications networks for service providers and enterprises. Backed by the research and development of Bell Labs, Lucent focuses on high-growth areas such as optical and wireless networks; Internet infrastructure; communications software; communications semiconductors and optoelectronics; Web-based enterprise solutions that link private and public networks; and professional network design and consulting services. For more information on Lucent Technologies, visit its Web site at www.lucent.com.
| Author | Jeff Myers |