PLX Technology

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PLX Technology, Inc., PLX Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ:PLXT) is based in Sunnyvale, California, USA, and is currently the world’s leading supplier of PCI Express and other standard I/O interconnect semiconductors to the communications, server, storage, embedded-control, and consumer markets. PLX develops and supplies semiconductor devices that accelerate and manage the transfer of data in microprocessor-based systems including networking and telecommunications, enterprise storage, servers, personal computers (PCs), PC peripherals, consumer electronics, imaging and industrial products. PLX offers a complete solution consisting of three related types of products: semiconductor devices, software development kits and hardware design kits. These semiconductor devices manage fast and reliable transfer of data in microprocessor based systems. PLX software development kits and hardware design kits promote sales of our semiconductor devices by lowering customers development costs and by accelerating their ability to bring new products to market.

1 Need for Standard I/O Interconnect Products and Comprehensive I/O Solutions
2 PLX Solutions
3 External links and references

[edit] Need for Standard I/O Interconnect Products and Comprehensive I/O Solutions

Even with standard I/O specifications, design teams must still create the circuitry and related software that implement these specifications. Designers must also update their I/O subsystems to include frequent improvements in these specifications. Instead of developing all the hardware and software technology internally, system developers seek to focus their scarce engineering resources on the proprietary features of their products. By using standard semiconductor devices in the I/O subsystem instead of custom-designed devices they are able to implement the basic framework of the system more easily and thereby reduce the I/O subsystem design effort resulting in faster time-to-market and lower development cost. Standard products allow the design teams to concentrate their efforts on differentiating hardware and software features. In addition to standard interconnect semiconductor devices, system designers can benefit from several other design elements, such as data control software, hardware design kits and third-party development tools to complete their development work in a timely manner. These additional elements simplify development and improve time to market. They provide design teams with proven hardware and software design examples and the tools to adapt these examples to their needs. Due to the availability and adoption of I/O standards by developers of microprocessor-based systems, servers and PC’s, there is now a large demand for I/O subsystem components based on these standards.

[edit] PLX Solutions

[edit] PCI Express Switches and Bridges

The ExpressLane PCI Express (PCIe) product family offers fully configurable switches with Non-Transparent bridge function and forward/reverse bridges. PLX PCIe switches and bridges are fully-compliant with the PCI Express Base 1.0, 1.0a, 1.1, and 2.0 specifications. The newer Gen 2 switches share a field-tested and proven PLX architecture with industry-leading features including the lowest latency and power, highest performance, integrated non-transparent ports and Hot-Plug controllers, the smallest Flip-Chip packaging, and highly flexible port configurations up to x16. ^[1] ^[2]

[edit] PCI and PCI-X Bridges

FastLane PCI 6000 series bridges allow more devices to be attached to the PCI bus, and provide the ability to include intelligent adapters on a PCI bus. ^[3]

[edit] PCI I/O Accelerators

The PCI 9000 Series provide an advanced and broad range of general-purpose, PCI-to-local bus bridges offering two types of I/O Accelerators: Targets and Masters. PCI I/O Accelerators

[edit] USB Controllers

PLX USB Controllers offer high-performance, strict compliance to industry standards, and power saving technology. The NetChip devices, acquired by PLX and now identified as a product family, are USB controllers and used in printers, portable media players, GPS systems, TV tuners, PCs, laptops, notebooks, WLAN devices, mobile phones, digital cameras and camcorders. ^[4]