Agere Systems Announces New Festino(TM) System Card Solutions for Multiservice Communications Network Equipment
/PRNewswire/ --
-- Agere to team with Agilent Technologies and Exar to provide complete,
validated equipment line card reference designs, and with Celestica for
equipment line card design and electronics manufacturing services
-- New Festino solutions can reduce equipment system development costs by
more than 50 percent and cost of service deployment for communications
service providers by more than 30 percent
ATLANTA, Ga., June 2 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Agere Systems today announced its Festino(TM) system card solutions for multiservice wireline and wireless networking equipment aimed at accelerating the deployment of more versatile and lower cost equipment solutions and network services. The solutions, which will consist of validated reference designs, can reduce equipment system development costs by more than 50 percent and cut the cost to deploy services for communications service providers by more than 30 percent. The new Festino solutions will be demonstrated at the SUPERCOMM trade show (Agere booth #21246) here June 3-5.
Agere will provide validated reference designs that integrate optical components from Agilent Technologies, the No. 1 provider of optical transceivers, and line interface chips from Exar, a leading provider of T1/E1/J1 and T3/E3 multi channel Line Interface Units (LIU) chips. Agere has also entered into an agreement with Celestica, a world leader in electronics manufacturing services (EMS). Celestica will work with Agere to offer customized solutions to equipment suppliers, based on Agere's validated reference designs.
"The capital expense budgets of network service providers have declined by more than 35 percent over the last two years, operating expense is being squeezed, but network traffic continues to grow," said Allen Nogee, a principal analyst with In-Stat/MDR. "Service providers are being challenged to deploy new revenue-generating services with minimal equipment investment. Agere's Festino solutions are aimed squarely at helping to address this challenge."
Leading the Trend toward Reusable Platforms
The new Festino solutions address a major semiconductor chip and telecom equipment industry trend of consolidation and re-use of chips across multiple platforms. Traditionally, major equipment manufacturers have offered between four and ten different types of equipment per product family. To control product development costs, they are limiting the number of chip set designs per family-fewer than four and in some cases only one. They are reusing them in multiple platforms to control product development costs.
Agere's Festino solutions provide multi-channel, multi-speed and multi- protocol capabilities, enabling manufacturers to use one family of chips and software across multiple equipment platforms. Equipment manufacturers can use Agere's common technology platforms to easily and cost-effectively adapt or upgrade their network equipment to meet the demands of service providers as they deploy new services.
"Festino represents a new way of doing business in the communications net working industry," said Sohail Khan, executive vice president of Agere's Infrastructure Systems Group. "Network equipment suppliers increasingly want to invest less time and money on standard system elements, and are looking to strategic component vendors for design, integration and validation expertise, such as Festino solutions."
By providing a reference design of integrated software and components, Festino system card solutions also help network equipment companies to significantly reduce development costs. With R&D budgets totaling upwards of $24 billion last year, equipment companies can redirect their cost savings to developing features that differentiate them in the marketplace. In addition, equipment manufacturers will be able to reduce their own design costs by using Celestica's expertise in providing customized design and manufacturing services.
"We are pleased Agere chose to work with Celestica as its provider of design and electronics manufacturing services," said Joseph Mixsell, vice president, Global Design Services, Celestica. "Our heritage in design services will allow us to bring a tremendous depth and breadth of capability to bear for Agere. Celestica's industry-leading design capabilities will bring new levels of customization, reduce costs and improve time-to-market for Agere and its customers."
Flexible Solutions Reduce Cost and Time to Market
The first three applications of Festino system card solutions target the $8.5 billion market for multiservice networking equipment. The Festino Optical Transport Solutions, Aggregation and Grooming Solutions and Converged Network Solutions are targeted for use in line card system reference designs that use a set of pre-validated, interconnected chips and optical components in a networking system to perform aggregation, switching and transport of communications signals in a network. This solution can accelerate network equipment providers' time to market by up to a year.
Agilent is providing integrated fiber optic transceivers for all three Festino solutions. The company offers the industry's broadest line of transceivers for enterprise, storage and metropolitan network applications.
"The importance of providing these types of integrated solutions for our customers has never been more apparent," said Dick Chang, senior vice president and general manager of Agilent's Semiconductor Products Group. "As the world leader in fiber optic transceivers, Agilent delivers economical, high-performance solutions for networking. By working with other industry leaders such as Agere, Exar and Celestica, we can provide even more value to our customers, and help them to reduce their time to market." The Festino Optical Transport Solutions will center on Agere's MARS(TM) Synchronous Optical Network/Synchronous Digital Hierarchy (SONET/SDH) framer chips, including the MARS Universal. This chip is the industry's most integrated, full-featured and versatile framer for multi-service access and metro networks. The chip scales from rates of 155 megabits per second (OC-3) to 10 gigabits per second (OC-192). Also included in the solution are the company's FlexTime(TM) clock switch chips. The Optical Transport Solutions can reduce the costs of designing and testing optical line cards by nearly 60 percent and significantly improve time to market.
Festino Aggregation and Grooming Solutions will include Agere's high- performance mapper devices for multi-service access from its FlexMap(TM) family, and the company's FlexTime clock switch chips. Exar's line interface unit (LIU) chips are also used in Agere's Festino Aggregation and Grooming Solution. Exar's offerings will include its T1/E1/J1 with the company's proprietary R3 Technology(TM), as well as their leading T3/E3/STS-1 LIU chips and LIU Jitter Attenuator combination devices. The solution is targeted at network edge applications where voice and data lines come together, such as multiservice network access systems, third-generation wireless radio network controllers, access concentrators and voice gateways.
"Exar is excited to be working with Agere as part of the Festino System Card Solutions," said Dr. Roubik Gregorian, Exar's chief operating officer. "The combination of Exar's interface solutions with Agilent's transceivers, and Agere's mappers and switches will drive dramatic improvement in system performance, board space requirements, cost savings, and design flexibility, making the Festino Solutions unique in the marketplace."
The Festino Converged Network Solutions address data and packet networking technology, such as Agere's industry-leading Ethernet over SONET and packet over SONET. The foundation of the Converged Network Solutions is Agere's Ethernet and packet framer and mapper, MARS-P, as well as its multiservice data path processor family, including Agere's APP550 traffic processor chip family. Coupled with Agere's packet switching chips, these solutions form the foundation for today's and tomorrow's data, packet and next-generation Ethernet networking systems.
For more product information, customers may call the Agere Systems Customer Response Center, 1-800-372-2447 (or direct dial: 610-712-4323), Dept. B10 (in Canada, 1-800-553-2448, Dept. B10, fax number 1-610-712-4106, especially for callers outside of North America) or write to Agere Systems, Room 10A-301C, 1110 American Parkway NE, Lehigh Valley Central Campus, Allentown, Pa. 18109. Customers may also email: docmaster@agere.com.
About Agere Systems
Agere Systems is a premier provider of advanced integrated circuit solutions for wireless data, high-density storage and multiservice networking applications. Agere's wireless data portfolio enables seamless network access and Internet connectivity through its GPRS offering for data-capable cellular phones, as well as Wi-Fi/802.11 solutions for wireless LANs and computing applications. The company is the market leader in providing integrated circuits such as read-channel chips, preamplifiers and system-on-a-chip solutions for high-density storage applications. Agere also provides custom and standard multiservice networking solutions to move information across wired, wireless and enterprise networks. Agere's customers include the leading PC manufacturers, wireless terminal providers, network equipment suppliers and hard-disk drive providers. More information about Agere Systems is available from its web site at http://www.agere.com/.
About Agilent SPG
Agilent's Semiconductor Products Group is the world's No. 1 optoelectronics semiconductor supplier, and is the No. 1 supplier of fiber optic transceivers. Agilent also designs and manufactures radio frequency and infrared devices for mobile communications, image sensors for mobile phones and optical computer mice, storage area network devices and subsystems, and application-specific ICs for select networking, computing and imaging applications. Information about Agilent's Semiconductor Products Group is available on the web at http://www.agilent.com/semiconductors.
About Exar
Exar Corporation designs, develops and markets high-performance analog and mixed-signal silicon solutions for the worldwide communications infrastructure. Leveraging its industry-proven analog design expertise, system-level knowledge and standard CMOS process technologies, Exar provides OEMs innovative, highly integrated ICs that facilitate the transport and aggregation of signals in access, metro and wide area networks. The company's physical layer silicon solutions address transmission standards such as T/E carrier, ATM and SONET. Additionally, Exar offers ICs for both the serial communications and the video and imaging markets. The company is based in Fremont, CA, had fiscal 2003 revenues of $67 million, and employs approximately 265 people worldwide. For more information about Exar, visit www.exar.com.
About Celestica
Celestica is a world leader in the delivery of innovative electronics manufacturing services (EMS). Celestica operates a highly sophisticated global manufacturing network with operations in Asia, Europe and the Americas, providing a broad range of services to leading OEMs (original equipment manufacturers). A recognized leader in quality, technology and supply chain management, Celestica provides competitive advantage to its customers by improving time-to-market, scalability and manufacturing efficiency. For further information on Celestica, visit its website at http://www.celestica.com/. The company's security filings can also be accessed at http://www.sedar.com/ and http://www.sec.gov/.
Agere, Agere Systems, the Agere logo, Festino, FlexMap, FlexTime and MARS are trademarks of Agere Systems Inc.
Agere's Forward-Looking Statements
This release contains forward-looking statements based on information available to Agere as of the date hereof. Agere's actual results could differ materially from the results stated or implied by such forward-looking statements due to a number of risks and uncertainties. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, satisfactory outcome of our union contract negotiations, the impact of any global or regional health epidemic such as severe acute respiratory syndrome, keeping pace with technological change, dependence on new product development, price and product competition, availability of manufacturing capacity, customer demand for our products and services, general industry and market conditions, timely completion of employment reductions and other restructuring and consolidation activities, limits on our ability to issue equity to raise capital and reliance on major customers and suppliers. For a further discussion of these and other risks and uncertainties, see our annual report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended September 30, 2002, and our quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the period ended March 31, 2003. Agere disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.
CONTACT: Charlie Hartley, office, +1-610-712-1728, or cell,
+1-908-507-6631, or cjhartley@agere.com, or Vibha Agrawal, office,
+1-610-712-1737, or cell, +1-908-256-6234, or vagrawal@agere.com, both of
Agere Systems; or Mark Alden of Agilent Technologies, +1-408-553-2769, or
mark_alden@agilent.com; or Greg Kaufman of Exar, +1-510-668-7121, or
gregk@exar.com; or Laurie Flanagan of Celestica +1-416-448-5790, or
Flanagan@celestica.com
Web site: http://www.agere.com/
http://www.agilent.com/semiconductors
http://www.exar.com/
http://www.celestica.com/
