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IRVINE, Calif., Jul 19, 2004 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX/ -- Broadcom Corporation (Nasdaq: BRCM), a leading provider of highly integrated semiconductor solutions enabling broadband communications, today announced the Broadcom® RAIDCore™ BC4000 series RAID host bus adapter (HBA), delivering the industry's most reliable, high performance Serial ATA (SATA) RAID controller cards currently available. Offering the industry's most extensive SATA-based RAID feature set, the BC4000 RAID controller cards are an excellent choice for small-to-medium-sized businesses (SMBs) and enterprise workgroups looking to improve data integrity and data access without the high costs usually associated with enterprise-class RAID functionality. Broadcom's new storage controller cards are available through authorized Bell Microproducts' resellers and other major distributors worldwide.
Over the past few years, RAID controller cards employed with SCSI disk drives have been standard equipment within dedicated enterprise servers, used to achieve high speed data access while maintaining data integrity. However, through the recent adoption of Serial ATA technology, RAID controller cards employed with SATA drives have performed comparably to their SCSI drive counterparts, but at much lower price points. The BC4000 RAID HBA brings to market the industry's most extensive and robust RAID feature set for SATA-based applications, combining enterprise-class data integrity and data access performance at SMB price points.
The BC4000 RAID HBA family, comprised of 64-bit, PCI-X low-profile compliant controller cards, are the only 2U compatible SATA RAID controller cards available today. The product family provides both four-drive (BCM4452-H) and eight-drive (BCM4852-H) support and is based on Broadcom's new BCM5770 Serial ATA controller chip. The new BCM5770 SATA chip and the BC4000 controller card significantly boost reliability with efficient power consumption and thermal load balancing, and feature a MTBF (mean time between failures) of 3.5 million hours, which is nearly three times greater than that of competitive SATA RAID controller cards.
Enterprise-class RAID functionality for the BC4000 controller cards is provided by Broadcom's XelCore™ RAID software, based on proprietary Fulcrum™ architecture (a highly integrated storage architecture). The XelCore software provides support for all popular RAID levels, as well as enterprise-class features such as online capacity expansion, controller spanning, online RAID level migration, and the ability to create storage arrays that span multiple controllers without having to bring the system down. As a result, Broadcom's RAID HBAs provide server and storage integrators with an inexpensive way to dramatically improve data integrity and data access speed without compromising data integrity or data access performance.
"The BC4000 HBA series are powerful storage solutions that bring enterprise-class RAID technology to the SMB market," said Tom Marmen, Vice President and General Manager of Broadcom's Storage Line of Business. "It is an ideal product family for value-added resellers and storage integrators looking to offer high-end storage alternatives to their customers without the premium price of other RAID approaches. And because it is based on Broadcom technology, we can ensure a high level of quality and performance."
Industry Leading Performance
Delivering the industry's best SATA RAID data access performance, the BC4000 eight-channel controller card performs RAID0 sequential reads at over 460 megabytes per second (MB/s) and sequential writes at more than 430 MB/s, as well as RAID5 sequential reads exceeding 400 MB/s and sequential writes at over 280 MB/s, all of which are performance-leading measures versus competitive products.
Furthermore, the BC4000's breakthrough performance is achieved by using the host PC's CPU for RAID processing without substantial impact on total system performance. Recently tested by an independent reviewer, Broadcom's four-channel controller card peaked at less than eight percent CPU utilization, which has little impact on the overall performance of today's powerful computing systems.
Extensive and Robust Feature Set
Utilizing XelCore RAID software based on Fulcrum architecture, Broadcom's RAID solutions offer high-performance, enterprise-class RAID functionality. These enterprise-class RAID features include:
* Online RAID level migration -- the ability to change the RAID level of
an array without taking a system offline
* Online capacity expansion -- the ability to add storage to an array
without taking a system offline
* Online array creation/deletion --the ability to add, modify or delete
arrays without business interruption
* Controller spanning -- the ability to create a very large array that
spans up to 32 disks and achieves extremely high read/write performance
using a large number of spindles in a single array
* Drive roaming -- the ability to move drives between systems and
controllers without keeping track of the controller and channel to which
a drive was attached
* N-Way disk mirroring and hiding -- the ability to create a secure backup
of a data array while hiding it from the operating system
* Distributed sparing -- the ability to use all disks in creating a spare
as a means to achieve higher performance by using all disks in an array
Broadcom acquired the XelCore software and Fulcrum architecture in January 2004 as part of its acquisition of RAIDCore, Inc., enabling the company to offer a unique and complete set of RAID solutions to the server storage market. Broadcom is one of few semiconductor providers that can offer enterprise-class storage and data integrity to all levels of businesses, including SMBs, who can now implement enterprise-level RAID features without the cost and IT-intensive processes that have kept RAID from more widespread use. In addition, the combination of Broadcom silicon, Fulcrum architecture and XelCore software brings a set of enterprise-class RAID storage solutions at a new price point to existing customers in the high volume server and storage markets.
Pricing and Availability
Broadcom's RAIDCore Serial ATA RAID controller cards are available from Bell Microproducts resellers in North America, South America and Europe (www.bellmicro.com). Australian and New Zealand customers can order the controller cards from Server-Bits.Com resellers (www.serverbits.com.au) located in Australia. The controller cards are also available online from PC Mall. The U.S. manufacturer's suggested list prices are $362 for the 8- channel controller card (BCM4852-H) and $289 for the 4-channel controller card (BCM4452-H).
About Broadcom
Broadcom Corporation is a leading provider of highly integrated semiconductor solutions that enable broadband communications and networking of voice, video and data services. We design, develop and supply complete system- on-a-chip (SoC) solutions incorporating digital, analog, radio frequency (RF), microprocessor and digital signal processing (DSP) technologies, as well as related hardware and software system-level applications. Our diverse product portfolio addresses every major broadband communications market, and includes solutions for digital cable and satellite set-top boxes; high definition television (HDTV); cable and digital subscriber line (DSL) modems and residential gateways; high-speed transmission and switching for local, metropolitan, wide area and storage networking; home and wireless networking; cellular and terrestrial wireless communications; Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) gateway and telephony systems; broadband network and security processors; and SystemI/O™ server solutions. These technologies and products support our core mission: Connecting everything®.
Broadcom is headquartered in Irvine, Calif., and may be contacted at 1-949-450-8700 or at www.broadcom.com.
Safe Harbor Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995:
All statements included or incorporated by reference in this release, other than statements or characterizations of historical fact, are forward- looking statements. These forward-looking statements are based on our current expectations, estimates and projections about our industry, management's beliefs, and certain assumptions made by us, all of which are subject to change. Forward-looking statements can often be identified by words such as "anticipates," "expects," "intends," "plans," "predicts," "believes," "seeks," "estimates," "may," "will," "should," "would," "could," "potential," "continue," "ongoing," similar expressions, and variations or negatives of these words. These forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future results and are subject to risks, uncertainties and assumptions that could cause our actual results to differ materially and adversely from those expressed in any forward-looking statement.
Important factors that may cause such a difference for Broadcom in connection with its RAIDCore storage products include, but are not limited to, general economic and political conditions and specific conditions in the markets we address, including the volatility in the technology sector and semiconductor industry, trends in the broadband communications markets in various geographic regions, and possible disruption in commercial activities related to terrorist activity or armed conflict in the United States and other locations; the rate at which our present and future customers and end-users adopt Broadcom's technologies and products in the markets for enterprise and consumer storage and storage networking applications; delays in the adoption and acceptance of industry standards in those markets; competitive pressures and other factors such as the qualification, availability and pricing of competing products and technologies and the resulting effects on sales and pricing of our products; our ability to scale our operations in response to increases in demand for our products and services; the timing, rescheduling or cancellation of significant customer orders and our ability, as well as the ability of our customers, to manage inventory; the availability and pricing of third party semiconductor foundry and assembly capacity and raw materials; our ability to retain and hire key executives, technical personnel and other employees in the numbers, with the capabilities, and at the compensation levels needed to implement our business and product plans; fluctuations in the manufacturing yields of our third party semiconductor foundries and other problems or delays in the fabrication, assembly, testing or delivery of our products; the risks of producing products with new suppliers and at new fabrication and assembly facilities; the loss of a key customer; our ability to specify, develop or acquire, complete, introduce, market and transition to volume production new products and technologies in a timely manner; the timing of customer-industry qualification and certification of our products and the risks of non-qualification or non-certification; the volume of our product sales and pricing concessions on volume sales; the effects of new and emerging technologies; changes in our product or customer mix; intellectual property disputes and customer indemnification claims and other types of litigation risk; problems or delays that we may face in shifting our products to smaller geometry process technologies and in achieving higher levels of design integration; the quality of our products and any remediation costs; the effectiveness of our expense and product cost control and reduction efforts; the risks and uncertainties associated with our international operations, particularly in light of recent events; the effects of natural disasters, public health emergencies, international conflicts and other events beyond our control; the level of orders received that can be shipped in a fiscal quarter; and other factors.
Our Annual Report on Form 10-K, subsequent Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, recent Current Reports on Form 8-K, and other Securities and Exchange Commission filings discuss the foregoing risks as well as other important risk factors that could contribute to such differences or otherwise affect our business, results of operations and financial condition. The forward-looking statements in this release speak only as of this date. We undertake no obligation to revise or update publicly any forward-looking statement for any reason.
Broadcom®, the pulse logo, Connecting everything®, the Connecting everything logo, Fulcrum™, RAIDCore™, XelCore™ and SystemI/O™ are trademarks of Broadcom Corporation and/or its affiliates in the United States and certain other countries. Any other trademarks or trade names mentioned are the property of their respective owners.
Broadcom Trade Press Contact
Scott Harlin
Sr. Communications Specialist
949-926-5226
sharlin@broadcom.com
Broadcom Business Press Contact
Bill Blanning
Sr. Director, Corporate Communications
949-926-5555
blanning@broadcom.com
Broadcom Technical Contact
Steve McIntosh
Product Marketing Manager, RAIDCore
603-324-1519
mcintosh@broadcom.com
Broadcom Investor Relations Contact
T. Peter Andrew
Sr. Director, Investor Relations
949-926-5663
andrewtp@broadcom.com
SOURCE Broadcom Corporation
Trade Press, Scott Harlin, Sr. Communications Specialist, +1-949-926-5226, sharlin@broadcom.com, or Business Press, Bill Blanning Sr., Director, Corporate Communications, +1-949-926-5555, blanning@broadcom.com, or Technical Contact, Steve McIntosh, Product Marketing Manager, RAIDCore, +1-603-324-1519, mcintosh@broadcom.com, or Investor Relations, T. Peter Andrew, Sr. Director, Investor Relations, +1-949-926-5663, andrewtp@broadcom.com, all of Broadcom
http://www.bellmicro.com
