July 15, 2002 - National Semiconductor Corporation (NYSE:NSM), the premier analog company driving the information age, today joined the RapidIO Trade Association formed to drive the adoption of an open standard, high-performance interconnect architecture. The RapidIO architecture promises increased bandwidth, lower costs, and faster time-to-market for National Semiconductor's networking and communications infrastructure customers.
Developed as an open standard, the RapidIO Architecture addresses the needs of present and future systems for a point-to-point, packet-switched interconnect. The RapidIO interconnect allows chip-to-chip and board-to-board communications at performance levels scaling to 10 Gigabits per second and beyond.
"National Semiconductor's leadership and strategic focus in the high speed interface area is perfectly aligned to the RapidIO charter and objective," said Jim Wieser, Chief Technologist of National Semiconductor's Wired Communications Division. "We have been developing low-voltage differential signaling (LVDS), Bus-LVDS as well as other GHz speed serial backplane solutions for years and RapidIO is a natural extension of our focus and roadmap. National Semiconductor fully supports the RapidIO initiative and objectives and we look forward to a strong partnership moving forward."
"RapidIO was developed as a common protocol architecture for the high-performance, low-cost, high reliability interconnect needs of embedded and communications systems. National Semiconductor is among the world's leading semiconductor companies and one of the key inventors of LVDS technology. Their endorsement of RapidIO is a significant milestone for us," said Sam Fuller, RapidIO Trade Association president.
About RapidIO Trade Association
The RapidIO Trade Association is a non-profit organization with headquarters in Austin, Texas, that was formed to drive the adoption of an open standard, high-performance interconnect architecture. Since incorporating in June 2000, the association has grown to over 50 member companies worldwide. Membership provides early access to the specifications, the ability to propose changes to RapidIO standards, and the opportunity to actively participate in the adoption process. A complete list of member companies, RapidIO specifications and technical information are available at the association's web site, www.RapidIO.org.
About National Semiconductor
National Semiconductor is the premier analog company driving the information age. Combining real-world analog and state-of-the-art digital technology, the company is focused on the fast growing markets for wireless handsets; displays; information infrastructure, and information appliances. With headquarters in Santa Clara, California, National reported sales of $1.5 billion for its last fiscal year and has about 10,000 employees worldwide. Additional company and product information is available on the World Wide Web at www.national.com.
