People still don’t trust compression but Carlsbad, California-based Stac Electronics Inc says that its second generation compression chip comes with multi-tasking capabilities and low power consumption mode: the 9705 is designed for use on a personal computer motherboard where it performs data compression services for both network communications and system storage devices; it offers built-in memory controller that directly accesses standard dynamic or static memory, and Stac claims that it can increase local area network data transmission rates by up to 18 times when used on adaptor cards; the 9705 compresses data at 2.5Mb per second and decompresses at 6Mb per second, a 39% improvement over Stac’s original compression chips; it will be available in sample quantities during the current quarter and full volume shipments are expected during the first quarter of 1992, with pricing set at $24 in 50,000 unit quantities.
