Chaparral Selects JNI 2 Gbps ASICs for Fibre Channel RAID

Targeting uncompressed high definition television delivery and other future high speed data storage applications, Chaparral Network Storage (Longmont, CO) has selected Emerald 2 Gbps Fibre Channel (JNIC-1260-2G ) ASIC controllers from San Diego-based JNI Corp. for their next generation external RAID controllers and intelligent storage routers. The new line of products will be available from Chaparral the later part of next year. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

In early testing, Chaparral's external RAID controllers demonstrated sustained 192 megabytes per second (MBps) performance. Using JNI's 2 Gbps ASIC, the Chaparral controllers will be ideal for applications that require high-speed sustained data access and streaming. As an example, the performance of the prototype Chaparral system well exceeds the 138 MBps performance requirement for uncompressed high definition television (HDTV).

Currently, all HDTV signals must be compressed and then uncompressed, as most delivery systems are not capable of sustained delivery of uncompressed HDTV across any type of network. Uncompressed HDTV could result in higher quality and reliability by eliminating a compression/decompression step in the HDTV delivery process—at least from storage to signal distribution.

JNI Corp. is a developer and manufacturer of Fibre Channel hardware and software products that form critical elements of storage-area networks (SANs). The Emerald JNIC-1260-2G ASIC is sampling now and will be available in production quantities this month. For more information contact JNI at 858-535-3121.