Standard Microsystems Corp has announced its entry into the Asynchronous Transfer Mode market with the launch of the 155Mbps Asynchronous Mode Power155 adaptor. For PCI-, SBus- and EISA- based computers, the adapter incorporates a custom ASIC design that is said to provide a traffic shaping engine that prevents cell loss and improves network performance. Support for the ATM Forum’s LAN Emulation 1.0 and UNI 3.0 and 3.1 is also claimed, while software driver support includes Novell Inc NetWare 3.12 and 4.x, Microsoft Corp Windows NT 3.51 and Windows95, IBM Corp AIX, and Sun Microsystems Inc’s SunOS and Solaris. On the wiring side, the product supports multimode fibre and Category 5 unshielded twisted pair. The adapter is due to ship in May, at prices ranging from $1,000 for the unshielded twisted pair Cat 5 PCI version, up to $2,080 for the multimode fibre EISA model.
