Those that thought Sun Microsystems Inc and its Sun Microelectronics unit had no interests beyond Sparc and Java chips are way wide of the mark, and that slow-burning Saturn Development Group Sun formed with PMC-Sierra Inc, since acquired outright by Sierra Semiconductor Corp in 1992 (CI No 2,495) and since joined by Tellabs Inc (CI No 2,495) to design Asynchronous Transfer Mode and Synchronous Optical Network chips is about to bear fruit. Xylan Corp, Calabasas, California local network switch maker is reportedly ready with a switch that uses a super- fast 622Mbps ATM chip set it is getting from Sun Microelectronics – most current ATM products run at 155Mbps. Infoworld reminds us that Xylan last year signed a deal with IBM Corp’s network hardware division that allows IBM to resell and jointly develop the Xylan switches (CI No 2,963).
