QuickLogic Announces QuickFC Family; Industry's First Customizable Fibre
Channel Devices
SUNNYVALE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 22, 2000--QuickLogic Corporation (Nasdaq:QUIK)
-- New ESP family supports up to 2.5 Gb/s data transfer for
proprietary links
-- Ideal for storage area networks and RAID
architectures
-- New development kit speeds product time-to-market
QuickLogic Corporation (Nasdaq:QUIK), the pioneer of ESP (Embedded Standard Product) technology, today announced the
QuickFC(TM) family, the industry's first customizable high-speed Fibre Channel devices. Based on Finisar Corporation's
(Nasdaq:FNSR) industry-leading gigabit-rate technology, QuickFC products offer up to 2.5 Gbit/s throughput in combination
with a platform of configurable SRAM/FIFOs and 32,000 system gates of programmable logic. This makes QuickFC devices
ideal for designs that require customization to the standard Fibre Channel protocol, such as applications for proprietary
storage area networks and RAID architectures, as well as customization for any Gigabit serial transmissions.
At the same time, QuickLogic announced the availability of the QuickFC Reference Design Kit (RDK), co-developed with
Finisar. The RDK allows system engineers to test their design in hardware while developing software drivers, significantly
reducing overall development time. The RDK supports data rates of 2.5Gbit/s with a GBIC, SERDES, memory and a socketed
QuickFC device, and plugs into a PCI expansion slot.
"The new QuickFC family is a natural extension of our ESP portfolio, which is designed to address high-speed applications
while offering the maximum in design flexibility," said Peter Feist, QuickLogic's vice president of worldwide marketing. "By
working with Finisar to develop the embedded functionality for our QuickFC ESPs we are striving to ensure that our customers
will be able to take advantage of well-proven and leading edge Fibre Channel technology."
Performance and Flexibility
QuickFC products provide a completely integrated configurable Fibre Channel encoder/decoder (8b/10b) interface combined
with 32,000 system gates of programmable logic. They include 22 blocks (25,344 bits) of dual port RAM that can be
configured as RAM, ROM, or FIFOs. Access time is less than 5ns and the FIFOs operate at more than 160 MHz. Designed for
use in conjunction with industry-standard Bb/s SERDES transmitter-receiver chips, the QuickFC family supports standard Fibre
Channel performance rates of 1.062 Gpbs (single rate) and 2.125 Gpbs (double rate) with 2.1Gbit/s throughput. For
embedded applications that require even higher performance, the QuickFC family will support up to 2.5 Gbit/s throughput.
The programmable logic portion of the device is based on QuickLogic's patented ViaLink(R) technology which offers
unparalleled performance, enabling 250 MHz 16-bit counters and 275 MHz data path implementations. QuickFC devices
offer up to 271 user-programmable I/O operating at 3.3 volts and are 5-volt tolerant.
"QuickLogic's innovative ESP approach provides Finisar with an exciting new opportunity to deliver its high-speed Fibre
Channel solutions," said Frank Levinson, Finisar's chief technical officer. "The flexibility offered by these ESP products opens
up new design possibilities for engineers working with proprietary systems while maintaining industry-leading performance."
Pricing and Availability
QuickFC devices are sampling now and are expected to become available beginning in third quarter 2000. They are
supported by QuickWorks(R) software version 9.0. Prices start at less than $80 in volumes of 10,000 pieces for the QL80FC-A.
QuickLogic ESP Advantages
QuickLogic ESP families represent a system-level IC approach based on optimized, pre-characterized embedded
functionality surrounded by user-configurable logic. The performance and size advantages provided by these embedded
functions and QuickLogic's ViaLink logic architecture make these families ideal for high-speed, low-power applications such
as tele- and data-communications, data storage and imaging. QuickLogic ESP families include QuickPCI(TM),
QuickDSP(TM), QuickRAM(TM), and QuickFC. |
