SUNNYVALE, Calif. – May 5, 2008 — PLX Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ: PLXT), the leading global supplier of PCI Express® (PCIe®) switch and bridge silicon today announced that multiple PLX® PEX 8548 PCIe switches for high-performance PCIe fanout and slot expansion have been designed to support the breakthrough Sun SPARC Enterprise T5140 and T5240 servers. The PEX 8548 is a highly flexible 48-lane PCIe switch, while the Sun SPARC Enterprise T5140 and T5240 servers – powered by the Sun UltraSPARC T2 Plus processor, are the world’s first dual-socket Chip Multi-Threading (CMT) servers, supporting up to 128 threads in as little as 1RU, designed for demanding enterprise and OLTP database applications. Two PLX ExpressLane™ PEX 8548 PCIe switches each interface to a Sun UltraSPARC T2 Plus processor through a x8 PCIe link integrated directly into a processor silicon, which provides fanout to onboard devices and up to six x8 PCIe slots for I/O expansion.
The Sun SPARC Enterprise T5140 and T5240 servers offer world-record throughput and energy and space efficiency, while championing the first SMP servers to increase performance by scaling with increased compute threads, rather than a higher frequency, thus minimizing power and space consumption. With 16 cores, 128 compute threads, 16 disk drives, and 128 GB of memory in a 2RU space, organizations can get up to 5x higher performance and 2.5x higher performance per watt in half the space versus comparable x86 systems, thus transforming their Web scale and enterprise application infrastructure with unsurpassed throughput, while slashing capital and operational expenses.
The PEX 8548 is a high-performance 48-lane, nine-port PCIe switch launched in September 2006 and is in full production with designs underway at a variety of companies across multiple global market segments. Unique key attributes include a remarkable low latency of 110ns, an energy-saving low power requirement of only 4.9W (typical), flexible port configurations (x1, x2, x4, x8, x16), true peer-to-peer communication, and native Hot-Plug ports ensuring RAS (Reliability, Availability, Serviceability).
“Sun SPARC Enterprise servers with CoolThreads technology deliver breakthrough performance with dramatic space and power efficiency,” said Warren Mootrey, director volume SPARC servers, Sun Microsystems. “These PLX chips support Suns cutting-edge UltraSPARC T2 Plus processors in maintaining the worlds fastest and most innovative servers.”
“As the market leader in advanced PCIe interconnect solutions, PLX has delivered the high-performance PCI Express technology requirements of key customers like Sun,” said David Raun, vice president of marketing and business development at PLX Technology. “Sun demands very high-speed connectivity and quality of service, and we are pleased that they find PLX products are exceeding all expectations.”
Press Graphic
A downloadable high-resolution press graphic can be found at photos.sun.com.
About PLX
PLX Technology, Inc. (www.plxtech.com), based in Sunnyvale, Calif., USA, is the worlds leading supplier of PCI Express and other standard I/O interconnect semiconductors to the communications, server, storage, embedded-control, and consumer markets. The company provides a competitive advantage through an integrated combination of experience, high-performance silicon, hardware and software design tools, and global partnerships. These innovative solutions enable our customers to develop equipment with industry-leading performance, scalability and reliability that allows them to bring designs to market faster.
ExpressLane, performancePAK, visionPAK, PLX Technology and the PLX Technology logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of PLX Technology, Inc. All other product names that appear in this material are for identification purposes only and are acknowledged to be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies. Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.
