Irvine, Calif., September 25, 2007 — Critical I/O, the leader in high-performance interfaces for real-time and embedded systems, today announced the industry’s first 10Gb Ethernet (10GbE) networking interface for embedded, military and avionics applications. The new XGE 10GbE interface family incorporates Silicon Stack technology that offloads TCP/IP protocol stack processing to hardware, thus allowing wire speed transfers, minimal host processor overhead, very low latency and rock-solid determinism. As a result, the 10GbE XGE interfaces permit users of high-performance systems to benefit from the low cost, interoperability and networking capabilities of Ethernet, even in such demanding applications as radar, sonar, flight simulation and scientific applications.
“Everyone is talking about 10Gb Ethernet,” says Jack Staub, chief executive officer of Critical I/O, “but actually taking advantage of its performance potential is another matter. 10GbE holds the promise of providing an order of magnitude increase in performance, offering a compelling alternative to other more specialized data networking technologies, such as Infiniband and Serial Rapid I/O. The problem users run into, however, has to do with the software-intensive nature of Ethernet’s TCP/IP protocol stack. Many embedded systems have struggled to keep up with the stack processing associated with 1GbE connections, so dealing with 10GbE presents 10 times the challenge. That’s why we use Silicon Stack technology to offload protocol processing to silicon and reduce host processor loading so as to deliver true 10Gb performance.”
The XGE 10Gb family is currently available in XMC form factor with dual 10GbE ports, and employs an 8-lane PCI Express host bus interface. AMC and PMC versions are also planned. Native support for IPv4 and IPv6 is included. The XGE 10GbE XMC interfaces are available now.
About Critical I/O
With headquarters in Irvine, Calif., Critical I/O is the leading provider of high-performance interfaces for embedded, avionics and military applications. The company has delivered more than 30,000 high-performance Fibre Channel and Ethernet interfaces to mission-critical air, ground and sea-based applications. With nearly a decade of progressive innovation and development, Critical I/O has done more than any other company to apply these broadly adopted commercial network standards and technologies to advanced military applications. Known worldwide for its technical expertise, software support and its ability to leverage state-of-the-art commercial technology, Critical I/O focuses entirely on the network and I/O requirements of high-performance embedded systems.