* Neterion’s latest 10 Gigabit Ethernet adapter
Start-up Neterion last week unveiled the first 10 Gigabit Ethernet adapter to use the PCI Express bus.
Founded in 2001 as S2io, Neterion specializes in such high-speed adapters, having already introduced a PCI-X version of the 10 Gigabit NIC a little over a year ago. Neterion refreshed that adapter in January as the Xframe II, which can take advantage of PCI-X 2.0.
The Xframe II was a major step for Neterion, because it took advantage of the higher speeds allowed by PCI-X 2.0. As noted at the time, previous adapters maxed out at about 7G bit/sec, while Xframe II can handle a full 10G bit/sec.
Now the company has moved on to PCI Express as well with the Xframe E. Neterion says that OEMs are clamoring for network adapters that use this emerging bus.
The company points out several advantages of PCI Express: scalable bus bandwidth, lower overhead, lower latency and QoS controls.
It has a low-pin-count interface that offers lots of bandwidth per pin, according to the PCI-SIG, the group created to maintain the PCI standards. The low pin count reduces the cost and reduces the complexity of gear that supports PCI Express, and the architecture is scalable to higher transfer rates as higher-frequency signaling technologies are introduced.
The adapters are aimed at storage devices and servers, so they could be used to set up 10 Gigabit Ethernet storage area networks.
The Xframe E is hardware- and software-compatible with previous iterations of Xframe. Xframe drivers are available for Windows, Linux, HP-UX, IBM AIX, Sun Solaris and SGI Irix.
