---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Florida SunFlash SMCC And Motorola Introduce New SBus Interface Chips SunFLASH Vol 38 #1 February 1992 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- SMCC = Sun Microsystems Computer Corporation. -johnj ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- New Devices Will Speed Development of SBus Products ANAHEIM, Calif. --February 4, 1992-- Sun Microsystems Computer Corporation (SMCC) and Motorola Inc. today introduced at BUSCON WEST two new SBus interface controllers, the SBus Goldchip(TM) and the SBus SLIC(TM). With these new devices, developers of systems and add-in cards for SBus-based workstations and servers will no longer have to design the interface between their products and the system SBus controller. SBus is a high-performance, modular I/O interconnect that was designed by SMCC and made available to the industry with no licensing restrictions, design fees or royalties. There are currently 260 SBus cards available from more than 100 vendors. The new chips are fully compliant with the SBus specification, so that SBus system and card developers who use them in their designs can concentrate on creating more specialized products rather than on interface protocols. This improves productivity, lowers manufacturing costs and speeds time-to-market. Designed by SMCC, the chips will be manufactured, marketed and supported worldwide by Motorola. The SBus Goldchip is the industry's first general-purpose, 64-bit direct memory access (DMA) interface chip for a RISC bus architecture. Anticipating increased bandwidth requirements from I/O devices, the SBus Goldchip implements SBus specification Revision B.0, which allows 64 bits of data to be transferred with each clock cycle. This results in a sustainable bandwidth of up to 160 megabytes per second. The SBus Goldchip is an SBus master device that can initiate data transfers on the bus to any other device. The SBus Goldchip further establishes SBus as the only I/O interconnect to keep pace with increasing system CPU performance. With it, low-cost SBus boards and systems can now be designed for applications that benefit from higher bandwidth, such as multimedia, advanced display and image processing, mass storage, networking and data communications. The SBus SLIC is a general-purpose, 32-bit programmed I/O interface chip that developers can use for cost-sensitive, medium-bandwidth SBus board applications. It is an SBus slave device; in other words, it can only respond to requests from the CPU or other masters on the bus. The SBus SLIC provides a peak bandwidth of 80 megabytes per second for applications that do not require direct memory access, including frame buffers, serial/parallel interfaces and data acquisition boards. Its programmable interface is designed to minimize and even eliminate the external hardware required to connect an SBus-based system to peripheral devices. Advanced Technology Used in Design Because advanced CMOS gate array technology is capable of supporting processors with speeds of up to 60 MHz at low power levels, SMCC is designing the SBus Goldchip and SBus SLIC using Motorola's fourth-generation H4C Series(TM) arrays and surface-mount quad flat package technology. The logic density achieved with three-layer metal, submicron CMOS reduces SBus add-on board complexity by consolidating the functionality of several chips onto a single component. Circuit and board-level tes tability is provided by full IEEE 1149.1-compliant JTAG cells implemented in the chip's I/O structure. Availability The SBus Goldchip and the SBus SLIC are scheduled for availability to SBus system and card developers worldwide in the fourth quarter of 1992. They will be available directly from Motorola. In the United States alone, Motorola and its distributors provide support for semiconductor customers with more than 250 technical application engineers in over 50 metropolitan locations. Sun Microsystems Computer Corporation, a subsidiary of Sun Microsystems, Inc., is the world's leading supplier of client-server computing solutions, which feature networked workstations and servers that store, process and distribute information. Used for many demanding commercial and technical applications, SMCC's products command the largest share of the computer industry's fastest-growing market segment: workstations and servers. Sun Microsystems, Inc., founded in 1982 and headquartered in Mountain View, Calif., is a multibillion-dollar corporation doing business worldwide. With 1991 semiconductor sales in excess of $3.6 billion, Motorola is one of the world's largest and broadest suppliers of semiconductors, with a balanced portfolio of more than 50,000 devices. Motorola was a winner of the first Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award in 1988 in recognition of its superior company-wide quality management process. ### Sun, Sun Microsystems, the Sun logo, SMCC, Goldchip and SLIC are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. SPARC is a registered trademark of SPARC International, Inc. Products bearing SPARC trademarks are based on an architecture developed by Sun Microsystems, Inc. H4C Series is a trademark of Motorola Inc. All other products are referred to herein by the trademarks as designated by the companies that market those products. PR contacts: Sun Microsystems Computer Corp. Vicki Ferrando (415) 336-7226 Motorola, Inc. Angela Hatfield (602) 952-3856 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ For information send mail to info-sunflash@sunvice.East.Sun.COM. Subscription requests should be sent to sunflash-request@sunvice.East.Sun.COM. Archives are on solar.nova.edu, paris.cs.miami.edu, uunet.uu.net, src.doc.ic.ac.uk and ftp.adelaide.edu.au All prices, availability, and other statements relating to Sun or third party products are valid in the U.S. only. Please contact your local Sales Representative for details of pricing and product availability in your region. Descriptions of, or references to products or publications within SunFlash does not imply an endorsement of that product or publication by Sun Microsystems. John McLaughlin, SunFlash editor, flash@sunvice.East.Sun.COM. (305) 776-7770.