Systems and Components Briefs

AOpen's New CD-RW Drive Offers Speed, Reliability

prevention technologies to safeguard against buffer underrun and disk-writing errors. Additional features include 2-MB or 8-MB data buffer memory, support for the random UDF

format for easy writing to CD-RW disks, and a front-panel rotary volume control.

Intel Looks In the Mira
Intel has developed a reference design to help speed the development of new-generation smart displays powered by Microsoft's Mira technology. Mira is a new set of Windows technologies that lets users wirelessly connect to a Windows XP PC from anywhere in the office or home via battery-operated smart-display devices. The Intel XScale technology provides the performance and low-power consumption to process the wireless data interchange between the PC and display while helping to extend battery life. Intel will also make available to Mira device manufacturers an optimized reference design to help speed their products' development.

Intel's Pentium 4 Hits 2.4 GHz
In other news, the chip-maker has introduced the Pentium 4 processor at 2.4 GHz, or 2.4 billion cycles per second. Using new smaller circuits and large 300-mm wafers, each Pentium 4 processor chip has 512 KB of performance-enhancing Level 2 cache, 55 million transistors and advanced multimedia instructions. This processor contains the fastest and smallest (60 nm) CMOS transistors in mass production. The Pentium 4 processor, at 2.4 GHz with 512 KB Level 2 cache, is available now and priced at $562 in 1,000-unit quantities.

Internet On the Go
AMD is targeting the non-PC mobile Internet appliance market with a new processor, the Alchemy Au1100. Now being tested on Web pads, telematics and PDAs, the performance and power consumption of the Au1100 ranges from 333 MHz at less than 200 mWatt to 500 MHz at 500 mWatt. Like the Au1000 and the Au1500 before it, the Au1100 is a system-on-a-chip, meaning it contains all the electronics for a complete, working product. The 400-MHz Au1100 processor costs $29.50 in 10,000-unit quantities.

Expand Networks Expands Its Product Line
Expand Networks has launched the Accelerator 6800 Series, the first of its intelligent network-optimization appliances to support Gigabit Ethernet. The Accelerator 6800 provides a scalable, easy-to-deploy solution that instantaneously delivers 100 percent to 400 percent additional throughput from existing networks. Features include data-surge protection, bandwidth multiplexing and advanced queuing. Expand's products are built on the company's patented Enterprise Caching Technology, which focuses on increasing network capacity for IP, non-IP, Web and non-Web enterprise applications. The Accelerator 6800 is scheduled for release later this quarter at the list price of $44,995.

Chip Support
Bell Labs, Lucent Technologies' R and D arm, has devised a way to dramatically increase the efficiency of a critical chip used in its parent's third-generation Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) network equipment. The new baseband processor offers performance improvements for Lucent's base-station equipment, enabling these systems to serve up to 10 percent more customers,with the highest data-transmission speeds,than base stations incorporating other available baseband processors. This is the first time digital encoding of voice and data signals has been combined into a single channel while complying with the latest UMTS specification established by the Third Generation Partnership Project, a global consortium of standard-setting organizations.