PLX Technology

PLX Technology
Subsidiary
Founded 1994
Headquarters Sunnyvale, California
Products PCIe components
Parent Avago

PLX Technology is an integrated circuit company based in Sunnyvale, California. PLX products are focused on PCI Express and Ethernet technologies.

Avago Technologies completed acquisition of PLX Technology on August 12, 2014.

Products

PLX supplies components for interconnecting parts of computer systems.

PCI Express

PLX Technology PEX8606 PCI Express switch on a PCI Express ×1 card, creating multiple endpoints out of one endpoint and allowing it to be shared by multiple devices

The Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) bus evolved into a family of technologies standardized by the PCI-SIG standards group. Software compatible with the previous, parallel technology, the switched serial PCI Express (PCIe) technology became a popular way to connect the building blocks of most computer systems by 2008.[1]

Switches: Since PCI Express is a point-to-point serial interconnect standard, it requires a switch to connect a single PCI Express port from a processor or chipset to multiple end-points. PLX started with the PCIe 1.0 family at 2.5 Gigatransfers per second in 2004, followed by PCIe 2.0 products in late 2007, where the data rate doubled to 5.0 Gigatransfers per second.[2] The company offers more than 18 PCIe 3.0 products at 8 Gigatransfers per second.

Bridges: A PCI Express bridge enables a system that uses PCI Express to work with devices that use other standards. This type of bridge facilitates connection back to conventional PCI for upgrading.[3] Applications using these bridge devices include servers, storage host bus adapters, graphics, TV tuners and security systems. PLX also offers several legacy bridges that translate general purpose serial and parallel ports. PLX announced a controller that connects PCI Express to USB 3.0 in January 2011.[4]

Consumer

PLX, through its acquisition of Oxford Semiconductor in January 2009, designed and manufactured network-attached storage and direct attached storage hardware and firmware for consumer storage [5] but divested its research and development team in Abingdon-on-Thames, UK, in October 2011 to OCZ Technology Group.[6]

Ethernet

PLX purchased the Teranetics company in September 2010 for about $26 million. Products from this merger supported physical layer connection to 10 Gigabit Ethernet known as 10GBASE-T, using Category 6 cable or Category 7 cable.[7][8] PLX divested this team in September 2012 to Aquantia Corporation.[9]

References

  1. ↑ Krishna Mallampati (October 1, 2008). "PCIe expands interconnect potential for next-gen systems". EE Times India. Retrieved August 27, 2013.
  2. ↑ Miguel Rodriguez (October 2008). "Intelligent Switches: The Next-Generation PCI Express Interconnect". RTC Magazine. Retrieved August 27, 2013.
  3. ↑ Eugene Cabanban (April 17, 2008). "Blind prefetching improves PCI Express-to-PCI-bridge performance". EDN magazine. Retrieved August 27, 2013.
  4. ↑ "PLX Technology OXU310x controller family: USB SuperSpeed 3.0-to-SATA controllers target consumer-storage market". EDN. January 25, 2011. Retrieved August 27, 2013.
  5. ↑ John Walko (January 5, 2009). "PLX completes acquisition of Oxford Semi". EE Times. Retrieved May 9, 2011.
  6. ↑ "PLX Divests Consumer R&D Team, Reduces Expenses, Focuses on Fast-Growing Data Center, Cloud Services". Press release. October 5, 2011. Retrieved August 27, 2013.
  7. ↑ "Teranetics". official web site. Retrieved August 27, 2013.
  8. ↑ Rick Merritt (September 23, 2010). "PLX acquires Teranetics in $36M deal". EE Times. Retrieved August 27, 2013.
  9. ↑ "PLX Divests 10GBase-T Business, Reduces Expenses, Focuses on Enterprise PCI Express". Press release. September 14, 2012. Retrieved August 27, 2013.
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