Press Release

Praesum Communications Introduces RapidIO® SwitchKit^TM

RapidIO Leader Delivers First Member of Switching Tool-Kit Family

February 14, 2005, Petaluma, California. Praesum Communications continues to break new ground in networking technology with the introduction of RapidIO SwitchKit, a set of Intellectual Property (IP) building blocks for quickly creating customized RapidIO switches.

RapidIO SwitchKit is a set of IP building blocks coupled with a complete development environment that can be used to create a wide range of RapidIO switch configurations. "Interconnect issues are the next hurdle to improving system efficiencies," says Praesum CEO Kent Dahlgren. "Switches are taking the place of traditional core logic as embedded systems move towards switched IO standards such as RapidIO and PCI Express. However, customers must have the ability to tailor the switch to their requirements. This includes a range of port configurations as well as the ability to integrate memory, peripherals, and bridges into the switch. The modular architecture of SwitchKit™ gives our customers this flexibility, which lets them respond to a rapidly changing market."

RapidIO SwitchKit is ideal for implementing high-performance, switched interconnects in networking and telecommunications equipment, storage subsystems, signal and image processing devices, and other embedded computing and communication systems.

RapidIO SwitchKit features include:

• Support for any combination of RapidIO Serial and Parallel physical layer interfaces
• Unicast and multicast packet forwarding
• Port aggregation
• RapidIO Error Management Extensions.
• Additional system integrity features such as ECC on all memory structures, and additional error logging.
• RapidIO Software/System Bring Up Specification firmware
• ATCA hardware validation platform

RapidIO SwitchKit is currently in customer beta release; general availability will be in early Q2. It is being demonstrated in hardware with Praesum's ATCA and Hardware Interoperability Platform (HIP) boards. PCI Express^TM and Ethernet SwitchKits will be available later this year.

RapidIO SwitchKit technology is available in two forms: as Verilog RTL source code with the ATCA development environment, or in specific switch configurations delivered as compiled netlists for Xilinx Virtex-4^TM devices. The source release is priced at $750,000, and Virtex-4 netlists are priced at $70,000.

About Praesum

Praesum Communications develops and deploys smart switching technologies in the form of IP cores, boards, and system level products. We believe that the addition of more intelligence to switching products is the key to managing network resources - bandwidth, applications, users, and business relationships that justified the network in the first place. Praesum focuses on applying business policies to high bandwidth networks.

Praesum was founded in January 2000 and has its headquarters in Petaluma, Calif. For more information, visit the Praesum web site at www.praesum.com.

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RapidIO is a registered trademark of the RapidIO Trade Association. Virtex-4 is a trademark of Xilinx, Inc. PCI Express is a trademark of the PCI-SIG. Product and company names mentioned may be trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their respective holders.