FREMONT, Calif. -- Oct. 5, 1998 -- Supporting the new Ultra ATA/66 standard adopted by Intel, Quantum and most major hard disk drive (HDD) manufacturers, Cirrus Logic Inc. (NASDAQ:CRUS) today announced that it is offering the new Ultra ATA/66 core for integration into its recently introduced 3CI99 system-on-chip platform. Further reinforcing its commitment to the new standard, the company also announced a standalone Ultra ATA/66 HDD controller (SH7660). With its unique price, performance and design options, Cirrus Logic is poised to capture a leadership position in the new mainstream desktop Ultra ATA/66 drive market.

"Ultra ATA/66 is one of those standards that immediately wins industry-wide acceptance," said Steve Dines, general manager of Cirrus Logic's Mass Storage Division. "We have honed our ASIC-like design methodology so that we are capable of offering our customers standalone and integration core components at the same time, eliminating the lag time penalty that has historically plagued disk drive manufacturers that want to integrate leading-edge technology."

Providing Performance Headroom into Next Millennium

With drive manufacturers doubling capacity and internal data transfer rates every 18 months the current Ultra ATA/33 interface is almost out of headroom. By supporting the new Ultra ATA/66 interface, Cirrus Logic devices can now support HDD capacities and internal data transfer rates well into the next millennium. The Ultra ATA/66 interface is a pivotal feature due to its ability to burst data from the disk to the host at 66 Mbytes per second, doubling today's current host data transfer rate with little or no cost to the consumer.

In addition, this high-speed data transfer rate also significantly reduces ATA/IDE bus utilization and CPU overhead, freeing up the CPU to handle additional tasks and eliminating the performance bottleneck associated with sequential streaming applications, such as video playback. Without this increased speed capability the drive's internal buffer would fill up faster than the host can empty it, resulting in a poor multimedia experience for the end-user with dropped video frames and skipped audio data.

New Core Features Patented ECC Technology

As linear densities increase, the chance for a defect to impact numerous bits of data also increases, which in turn leads to poor drive performance and system shut downs. To minimize data defects, Cirrus Logic has equipped the new core with its industry-leading error correction code (ECC). The company's patented ECC features programmable error correction technology, which allows HDD manufacturers to optimize the data integrity for a particular drive configuration.

When configured for the highest degree of correction, Cirrus Logic's ECC technology can correct a single burst of up to 161 bits or a double burst of up to 73 bits on-the-fly. This powerful ECC technology offers unprecedented detection and correction capabilities and can improve system performance with its ability to correct multiple errors on-the-fly with no firmware intervention. By featuring the industry's most advanced ECC technology, the new devices will enable drive manufacturers to maximize data storage densities, creating very attractive dollars- per-megabyte prices for next-generation HDDs.

Enhancement Features

The intelligent buffer manager of the Ultra ATA/66 core enhances performance by decreasing access times between the host and disk interfaces. To ensure the buffer will not limit drive performance, the new core provides support for high-speed SDRAM memory, increasing the buffer speed to 110 Mbytes per second and ensures full speed host and disk transfers. In addition the new core is also capable of transferring data from the read-channel to the disk controller at an unsurpassed 350 Mbits per second, raising mainstream desktop HDD performance to a new level.

Packaging, Pricing and Availability

The new Ultra ATA/66 core can be integrated into Cirrus Logic's 3CI platform or can be packaged as a standalone component. Cirrus Logic's standalone Ultra ATA/66 hard disk controller (SH7660) is sampling now in a 128-pin LQFP package and will be available in volume quantities by Q4 1998 at $10 in quantities of 100,000 units. Cirrus Logic's system-on-a- chip 3CI platform is tailor made to the customer's specifications. To find out more about information about the 3CI platform and integrating Ultra ATA/66 please contact the Cirrus Logic sales office.

Cirrus Logic

Cirrus Logic is a premier supplier of precision linear circuits and advanced mixed- signal system-level chip solutions, the latter which demand high-performance mixed-signal processing, embedded DSP, algorithms and firmware. The company's products, sold under its own name and the Crystal product brand, enable high-volume applications in mass storage, communications, consumer electronics and industrial markets. Additional information about Cirrus Logic is available at www.cirrus.com.