PLX delivers differentiation through evolution

PLX Technology recently announced its third generation of NAS (network-attached-storage) devices and the first it developed under the PLX umbrella.

The NAS 7820, 7821, and 7825 embed dual ARM 11 microprocessor cores running at 750 MHz, a companion network processor, and various application-specific hardware engines and software-acceleration modules. Single- and dual-port RGMII (reduced-gigabit-media-independent-interface) support enables integrated router and gateway functions, and two of the three family members embed dual SATA (serial-advanced-technology-attachment) transceivers for RAID (redundant-array-of-inexpensive-disk) capabilities.



Other differentiators include two PCIe (Peripheral Component Interconnect Express) Version 1.0 ports on the high-end 7825 and one each on the other two products, along with dual USB (Universal Serial Bus) 2.0 transceivers on all three devices. They all offer UART (universal-asynchronous-receiver/transmitter), SPI (serial-peripheral-interface), I²C (inter-integrated-circuit), and JTAG (Joint Test Action Group) capabilities, and the 7825 also has SPDIF (Sony/Philips digital-interface-format) and TDM (time-division-multiplexed)/PCM (pulse-code-modulation)-interface features, targeting applications such as digital video recorders and set-top boxes.

The devices’ GbE (gigabit-Ethernet) MAC (media-access controller) includes a bandwidth-boosting TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) offload engine. Integrated SRAM holds frequently used data, and onboard nonvolatile semiconductor storage is unnecessary because PLX’s processors can directly boot from the system’s disk drives.

PLX Technology
www.plxtech.com
Caption
The NAS 7825 device integrates two PCIe ports and dual USB 2.0 transceivers.