Hi Allen,
Does 3GIO have any relationship to NGIO?
Thank you,
Khan
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PCI SIG close to adopting 3GIO
By Jerry Ascierto, EE Times
Jul 27, 2001 (7:10 AM)
URL: eetimes.com
SAN JOSE, Calif. — The PCI Special Interest Group (SIG) is expected to vote Friday (July 27) to formally adopt the 3GIO proposal from Intel Corp. and its partners as the next generation of its desktop I/O technology. If the vote goes as expected, it would be a huge endorsement for 3GIO, which has yet to be publicly disclosed. It would nudge aside the current competition raging among HyperTransport from Advanced Micro Devices, RapidIO from Motorola and StarFabric from StarGen.
If the proposal is approved, the PCI SIG would also take over industry standard work associated with 3GIO and, in effect, own the technology's development. In essence, the vote would formally crown 3GIO, a serial, point-to-point interconnect technology, as the desktop-PC replacement for the aging and ubiquitous PCI bus.
Though only Intel and Compaq have announced their support for 3GIO to date, IBM, Dell and Microsoft are partners in developing the technology, said sources who asked not to be identified.
"Eventually, they'll define a schedule for handing it over to the SIG," the source said. "The impact that HyperTransport might have had probably won't be as broad now. But what's the best way of killing a competing technology? Find an industry body that has a lot of clout with developers and the trust of the industry to bless your technology. If the board were to bless such a deal, then you'd have a killer way of killing an alternative technology — even before you've delivered the spec."
The vote comes on the heels of the PCI SIG's election of nine new board members, to be chosen from 11 nominees, suggesting a need to populate the board of directors with 3GIO insiders. "This is a brilliant marketing move," the source added.
3GIO, announced in the most sketchy terms at the Spring Intel Developer's Forum (IDF) this year, is ready to be launched as a draft specification at this year's fall IDF, said Jim Pappas, who manages the InfiniBand program at Intel. Intel will be working hard to show that there is no technical overlap between InfiniBand and 3GIO, Pappas said. Both technologies are full serial bus initiatives that arose from much of the same laboratory research.
The PCI SIG vote also follows closely Advanced Micro Devices' (AMD's) announced HyperTransport Consortium, an industry body to be led by Apple Computer, Cisco, Nvidia, Sun Microsystems, Transmeta, PMC-Sierra and API Networks. Having won designs in Microsoft's gaming console, called the Xbox, through graphics chips made by Nvidia, the HyperTransport chip-to-chip interconnect has been making inroads lately.
"HyperTransport has gained considerable momentum very quickly," said Cary Snyder, a senior analyst at MicroDesign Resources (San Jose). Calling the PCI SIG vote akin to a consortium, Snyder cited the recent AMD consortium announcement, made last week at the Platform Conference, as an example of HyperTransport's momentum.
"Basically, Intel will be outlining what is the real need for 3GIO as a true replacement for PCI," Snyder said. "It's all a part of making sure they set the right expectations, and then follow through in delivering them."
While the timing of the two announcements suggests a bus war, some analysts believe that HyperTransport will be the preferred bus solution in the near term, while volume silicon supporting 3GIO may be years away — more toward the end of the decade.
HyperTransport is here now, whereas 3GIO will solve critical timing issues associated with a parallel bus technology such as HyperTransport, said Martin Reynolds, a senior analyst with market research company Gartner Dataquest.
"With a parallel bus, you can sometimes run into timing problems, and you can't tell whether a bit belongs to this or a previous batch," said Reynolds. "With serial, there are no such problems."
Reynolds said that he thinks each bus has its place. And, in contrast to media reports, "these buses [HyperTransport and 3GIO] are complementary," he said. "There isn't a bus war. HyperTransport is here today, and the industry absolutely needs it. But you won't see volume with 3GIO until 2005."
As the PCI bus runs out of gas, eyes will turn increasingly to HyperTransport. But, Reynolds contends, "By 2010, 3GIO will be the commonplace way to connect devices. So these buses are serving different needs and different time windows. These are complementary standards."
Indeed, at least one OEM, Hewlett-Packard, has publicly stated that it plans to support both interconnect schemes. |
