Genesi Selects Tundra Tsi109 Host Bridge for PowerPC® for High Density Blade Server
February 15, 2006

 

Tundra Tsi109™ with Dual Processor Support Delivers the Industry's Best System Performance, Power and Cost

Ottawa, Ontario - February 15th, 2006 - Tundra Semiconductor Corporation (TSX: TUN), the leader in System Interconnect, today announced the Tundra Tsi109 Host Bridge, the industry's highest performing host bridge for PowerPC, will be integrated into the Genesi High Density Blade Server, demonstrating the Company's rapidly strengthened position as the industry's leading supplier of host bridges for PowerPC.

The Tsi109 Host Bridge sets industry benchmarks for performance and power management through an innovative feature set supported by world-class design support. This Host Bridge is capable of dual processor support at 167MHz which enables higher system compute performance. The Tsi109's superior memory pipeline offers industry-leading memory bandwidth and an optimized PCI-X interface provides greater I/O to memory throughput. In addition to 2.5Watt typical power dissipation, the Tsi109 supports DDR2 memory, which makes this host bridge the ideal choice for demanding high-density, power-sensitive applications. The combination of the Tsi109's features, reliability and Tundra's world-class support provides designers with the benefits of greater overall system performance, reduced system design complexity, better integration and superior power efficiency.


Increased Performance and Functionality Brings Highly Optimized Systems to Market Faster
Tundra's growing portfolio of Host Bridges for PowerPC delivers industry-leading system performance, power and cost for customers in the wireless and wireline networking, storage and embedded computing markets. Tundra Host Bridges offer designers best system performance-per-watt as well as best system performance-per-dollar and are ideal companion chips for Freescale MPC74xx high performance processors. The combination of the Tsi109's rich feature set, high reliability and Tundra's accessible design support has been well received by the industry's leading PowerPC product vendors such as, Genesi.

The Genesi High Density Blade Server design is focused on leveraging the computing and power efficiency of Freescale's high performance MPC74xx PowerPC processor. Using the Tsi109, the Genesi design optmizes system space to achieve the highest density possible blade server with solid performance at a low cost. The Genesi High Density Blade Server provides a complete reference design package offering third party manufacturers utilizing the Freescale MPC74xx and Tsi109 with a competitive advantage in the Blade Server market.

"Tundra is the leading System Interconnect design partner and their host bridges are great additions to the PowerPC ecosystem, so we were pleased to integrate the Tundra Tsi109 high performance Host Bridge into the High Density Blade design," said Gerald Carda, chief technology officer of Genesi. "Our customers are demanding higher performance PowerPC solutions and the availability of Tundra's bridges with dual processor support, integrated power management and DDR2 memory backed by world-class support is enabling them to bring highly optimized systems to market faster."


ORDERING INFORMATION AND DESIGN SUPPORT TOOLS
The Tsi109 is currently sampling in both standard and lead-free packages for commercial temperatures. The Tsi109 will be available for industrial temperatures and will be in full production in March 2006. Volume pricing for the Tsi109 is under $75USD. For documentation, including ordering information, user manuals, and software drivers, to assist in accelerated development with the Tsi109, go to www.tundra.com/tsi109.

The Genesi High Density Blade Server is available now for evaluation purposes. Genesi's objective is to provide a complete reference design package to reduce power, increase performance/watt and achieve a density that is compact and affordable, yet scalable and flexible. The Customer can configure and build the HDB to their choosing. Details can be found at www.genesippc.com/products/hdb.php.


ABOUT TUNDRA HOST BRIDGES FOR POWERPC
Host bridges interconnect PowerPC processors with subsystems and are critical components in embedded designs. With over a decade of investment and experience supporting PowerPC-based designs, Tundra Host Bridges for PowerPC have been widely adopted by market leaders. Tundra Host Bridges include, the Tsi106™, Tsi107™, Tsi108™, Tsi109™, and Tsi110™, and are regarded as the best companion chips for the industry's leading PowerPC processor vendors - Freescale Semiconductor and IBM. The Tsi109 supports dual processors and support several I/O peripherals - PCI, PCI-X, DDR2 Memory, and Gigabit Ethernet. To maintain software investment and accelerated development cycles, the Tsi109 is software compatible with the Tsi108. The Tsi109 optimizes overall system performance, power and cost, while offering the industry's best signal integrity.


ABOUT GENESI
Genesi (www.genesippc.com) is a leading provider of PowerPC based computing products. Genesi's OpenFirmware (IEEE1275) compliant designs bring PowerPC technology, flexibility, and efficiency to the desktop, home entertainment, netcom, low-end server and pervasive market segments at an affordable price.


ABOUT TUNDRA
Tundra Semiconductor Corporation (www.tundra.com) is the global leader in System Interconnect providing world-class support and leading edge semiconductor solutions to the world's foremost communications, networking, storage system, and information technology vendors. Consistently delivering on system level performance promises that reduce time to market, Tundra System Interconnect ensures market advantage in wireless infrastructure, storage networking, network access, military, industrial automation, and information technology applications.


Attachments:
For product photos visit: http://www.tundra.com/images/stories/products/chips/Tsi109.png
For Block Diagrams visit: http://www.tundra.com/images/stories/products/host_bridges/tsi109/80B5020_BK001_05.gif
Tundra Semiconductor Products: http://www.tundra.com/products
Tundra Semiconductor Webinars: http://www.tundra.com/about-tundra/news
Tundra Semiconductor White Papers: http://www.tundra.com/support/resources

TUNDRA is a registered trademark of Tundra Semiconductor Corporation (Canada, U.S. and U.K.). TUNDRA and the Tundra logo are registered marks of Tundra Semiconductor Corporation (Canada - registration in the United States, European Union, and People's Republic of China pending). Tsi106, Tsi107, Tsi108, Tsi109 and Tsi110 are trademarks of Tundra Semiconductor Corporation. The PowerPC name, Power Architecture name, and the PowerPC logotype are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation, used under license therefrom. Other registered and unregistered trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

© Copyright 2006 Tundra Semiconductor Corporation. All rights reserved. Information subject to change without notice.


For more information contact:

Veronica Farmer
Tundra Semiconductor Corporation
Direct: (613) 592-0859 ext. 1771
Mobile: (613) 862-3346
veronica.farmer@tundra.com

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European Editorial
Rob Davies, +44 (0)1225 470000
rob.davies@publitek.com

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China Editorial
Romy Arambulo, + 852.2837.4727
Romy.Arambulo@edelman.com

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