Intel Makes Storage More Reliable, Manageable With Set Of New, Flexible Storage Processors

The Intel® IOP34x Family integrates advanced data protection, hardware-based RAID 5/6 (redundant array of independent disks), multiple high-performance Intel XScale® processor cores and support for high-speed serial-attached SCSI (SAS) and serial ATA (SATA) interfaces in processors and controllers for server direct attached and external storage products. Developers designing these flexible, pin-compatible processors into their storage solutions benefit from reduced engineering investments, proven interoperability, lower system costs and a time-to-market advantage.

“This new family of processors provides the storage industry with unprecedented product and interface design flexibility,” said Hans Geyer, vice president and general manager, Intel Storage Group. “By building their products on a common architecture, storage OEMs can more easily accommodate a variety of product solutions, increase manufacturing options, address multiple market price-points and simplify component management.”

As part of this flexible family of storage products, the IOP348 brings SAS RAID into the mainstream, enabling businesses of all sizes to benefit from its protection, performance and power-efficiency features. The IOP348 integrates an I/O processor with a SAS/SATA I/O controller, combining RAID and SAS technologies to deliver a new level of storage performance for internal and external storage products.

The single-core Intel® IOP341 I/O processor and two-core Intel® IOP342 I/O processor can be used in both external storage and embedded systems that require high performance. The ability to split functionality between two cores within the IOP342 is ideal for situations which require a single processor for two independent applications, enabling users to optimize and tailor the performance of different types of solutions.

Also announced today is the Intel® IOC340 I/O Controller that shares a common SAS/SATA control unit with the IOP348 for design scalability. As a discrete controller, the Intel® IOC340 I/O Controller can be combined with any compatible I/O processor such as the IOP342 or Intel® Architecture (IA) host processors for product development flexibility.

Made possible by a joint development effort with Emulex Corp., product designs based on the Intel® IOP34x I/O processors can be easily adapted to utilize the newly announced Emulex Fibre Channel products such as the Emulex* IOP 504 I/O Processor and the multi-protocol Fibre Channel/SAS/SATA Emulex IOP 502M I/O Processor for an extremely versatile range of interface options. Likewise, products requiring discrete I/O controllers can benefit from multi-protocol products. These products share a common software interface, based on Emulex’s unique Service Level Interface (SLI)* technology, allowing developers to leverage a common software driver architecture for seamless migration across the Emulex IOC 504 and 502M Controllers and the Intel® IOP34x storage processor family.

“By working together with Intel, we’ve brought a new dimension to the benefits of flexibility and stability that result from a common, consistent multi-protocol architecture," said Mike Smith, executive vice president of worldwide marketing, Emulex Corp. "Storage OEMs can now develop multiple protocol versions of their storage systems based on the same underlying hardware architecture without investing additional development time and resources. Emulex’s expertise in I/O protocols, coupled with our SLI software architecture, are key ingredients in this potent technology partnership."

Pricing for the Intel IOP34x storage processor family ranges from $53 to $152. The product family is sampling to customers now and will begin entering volume production in the fourth quarter of 2006. For more information about these new products, please visit www.intel.com/go/storage.

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