Dallas, Texas-based Texas Instruments Inc and Mountain View, California-headquartered Sun Microsystems Computer Corp are to collaborate on implementing Asynchronous Transfer Mode to the desktop. First fruit of the partnership is a fibre optic adaptor board, due to ship in May for $1,300. This will enable users with Category 5 wired networks in place to upgrade immediately to 155Mbps speeds, say the companies. The package, initially targeted at local networks, consists of a two-chip set, said to be an industry first. It will incorporate a Texas-developed single-chip physical layer line interface device, and a compatible single-chip segmentation and reassembly device originally developed by Sun. In addition, it will use the Asynchronous Transfer Mode switching products of Santa Clara, California-based SynOptics Communications Inc, which itself has a joint development agreement with Sun. According to the companies, the Asynchronous Transfer Mode package offers ATM capabilities at the Synchronous Optical Network or Synchronous Digital Hierarchy STS-3c/STM-1 rate of 155Mbps. Initially it will be for use in adaptor boards connecting to fibre cable, spreading in the future to unshielded twisted pair wiring when standards are complete. The adaptor boards will go into Sun’s Sparcstation systems running Solaris. The agreement is non-exclusive, enabling Texas to sell the chip set to other developers; currently however, Sun is its only partner. Further down the line, the Texas-Sun agreement will involve joint Asynchronous Transfer Mode development and licensing of Asynchronous Transfer technologies including bandwidth-intensive applications, such as videoconferencing, interactive services and global concurrent engineering. The two companies say that they will be starting work towards implementing the technology in the wide area network later this year.
