Packet Engines Reaches Milestone Company Ready To Begin Producing Its First Piece Of Hardware

The first piece of hardware to be manufactured by Packet Engines Inc. will soon go into production and will reach the market in May.

A computer card that will allow personal computers in a computer network to exchange information at 1 billion bits per second is now ready for production, according to Packet Engines officials.

The gigabit network interface card (G-NIC) is built around a microchip designed by Packet Engines’ Spokane-based engineering staff. The card will be manufactured by Symbios Logic of Fort Collins, Colo., one of Packet Engine’s strategic partners that specializes in the manufacture of custom designed microchips.

“This is an important step for our company,” Bernard Daines, Packet Engines president and chief executive officer, said Tuesday. “The G-NIC is the first of several announcements we will make this year.”

Packet Engines, founded by Daines in 1994, is dedicated to the production of both hardware and intellectual property related to gigabit ethernet technology.

Gigabit ethernet is the industry name for efforts to increase the speed of computer networks from 100 megabits per second to 1,000 megabits per second.

As computers and computer networks are asked to do ever-more complex tasks - such as imaging and computer-assisted design - the greater speed of information movement is important. Several different technological approaches to solving the problems related to such high-speed systems are being taken by companies hoping to capture the high-speed computer network market.

Gigabit ethernet is one of those approaches, and it has been pioneered by Daines and Packet Engines. Packet Engines originated the effort that has resulted in an Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers task force on gigabit ethernet. Daines said the effort is now supported by over 100 companies through the Gigabit Ethernet Alliance.

Packet Engines’ G-NIC is the foundation hardware upon which the 1,000 megabit network will be built, according to Octavio Morales, Packet Engines’ director of product management.

“In order to build your network, you need this product inside your computer,” Morales said, “and then you need some kind of a hub, and a repeater, or a switch, to aggregate and coordinate traffic.

“We will be providing these other pieces of the system as well.”

The speed at which technology develops now dictates that companies like Packet Engines must manufacture specific products for technologies that are not yet operational if they are to capture the market when it does become available.

“This is a very highly integrated solution for such new technology,” Morales said. “You don’t typically see a product like this until after the market matures a little.”

Packet Engines will unveil the G-NIC at the Neworld+Interop show in Las Vegas in early May. The device will be available on a production basis later that month.

Spokane-based Packet Engines plans to deliver a variety of other products in cooperation with several industry partners by midyear.

Packet Engines and its partners are betting that their technology approach will become the technology of choice throughout the world.

, DataTimes