Agilent, CATC to develop Protocol Analyzer for InfiniBand
This agreement enables both companies to focus on their individual areas of expertise to provide the market with an advanced development and verification system.
Under the terms of the agreement, each party has cross-licensed the other's intellectual property. While CATC will contribute expertise in protocol analysis software and BusEngine hardware technology, Agilent will contribute expertise in high-speed probing and hardware design.
Because of this cross licensing of IP, customers will benefit from each company's area of expertise. As an example, even though resulting products from this joint development will be independently marketed by each of the companies, both versions will include the CATC Trace graphical user interface software and Agilent's high-speed I/O front end for InfiniBand.
InfiniBand is rapidly gaining momentum as a unifying technology enabling high-speed connectivity both inside computers and among computers and storage devices in storage area networks. The InfiniBand specification outlines a technology with transfer rates between 2.5 Gb/s and 30 Gb/s over a network topology known as switched fabric.
The InfiniBand Trade Association is led by Compaq, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Intel, Microsoft and Sun Microsystems. Hardware and software companies are beginning to incorporate InfiniBand specifications into products requiring these demanding speeds with a long-term view of utilizing InfiniBand to replace the current PCI bus structures found in today's systems.
"The agreement with CATC clearly shows our level of commitment in providing our customers with the best-in-class development and verification solutions," said Alois Hauk, general manager of Agilent's Boeblingen Verification Solutions Operation in Germany. "CATC's well-known expertise in communication protocols and their elegant and modular analyzer hardware and software architecture will complement Agilent's broad competencies in this area."
"We are very pleased to be teaming with Agilent, an acknowledged industry leader in what we see as a very important technology," said Dan Wilnai, president and CEO of CATC. "The combination of our companies' expertise will allow us to quickly produce leading-edge products for the InfiniBand marketplace. Continuing our tradition of providing state-of-the-art verification systems very early in the standards lifecycle, like we have done for USB, USB2.0 and Bluetooth communication standards, we expect that our InfiniBand products will be embraced by the InfiniBand design community, assisting early adopters to accelerate their products' time-to-market."
About Agilent Technologies
Agilent Technologies, Inc. is a diversified technology company with approximately 47,000 employees serving customers in more than 120 countries. Agilent is a global leader in designing and manufacturing test, measurement and monitoring instruments, systems and solutions, and semiconductor and optical components. In fiscal year 2000, Agilent had net revenue of $10.8 billion. The company serves markets that include communications, electronics, life sciences and healthcare.
Information about Agilent Technologies can be found on the Web at www.agilent.com.
About Computer Access Technology Corporation (CATC)
CATC's advanced verification systems and connectivity products are used by semiconductor, device, system and software companies at each phase of their products' lifecycles from development through production and market deployment. CATC verification systems consist of development and production products that accurately monitor communications traffic and diagnose operational problems to ensure standards compliance and interoperability as well as assist system manufacturers to download software onto new computers. CATC connectivity products enable reliable, uninterrupted service for broadband Internet access. CATC was founded in 1992 and is headquartered in Santa Clara, California. CATC can be found on the web at www.catc.com.