Packet Engines, Symbios Logic Form Alliance High Tech Partnership Would Allow Companies To Market Products Faster, Cheaper

Packet Engines Inc. has formed a strategic partnership with a Ft. Collins, Colo., company that should allow both companies to get products to the market faster and cheaper than many of their competitors.

“We expect that this relationship will help us get our costs down sooner than many others who are involved in developing products for this technology,” said Bernard Daines, president and chief executive officer of Packet Engines.

Daines also said the alliance positions Packet Engines and Colorado-based Symbios Logic to be first to market with several gigabit ethernet products this spring.

Both Packet Engines and Symbios Logic are developing products for the emerging gigabit ethernet technology.

Ethernet technology is used to link computers into networks. Because computers are able to do more and more complex tasks - including imaging, video conferencing and the warehousing of vast amounts of data - the pathways that link greater numbers of computers into networks must be capable of carrying information at greater and greater speeds.

Presently, standard ethernet technology operates at 100 megabits per second. Gigabit ethernet technology hopes to move information at 1,000 megabits - or one billion bits - per second.

Building semiconductors capable of moving information at such “extraordinary rates,” according to Daines, “is not an easy piece of technology.”

Packet Engines designs semiconductors, develops intellectual property and plans to manufacture devices that all apply to gigabit ethernet technology. Symbios Logic also develops gigabit ethernet products, including a particular semiconductor design that Daines says has big advantages over competing designs for converting 100 megabit networks to 1,000 megabit networks.

Daines said the problem is like taking cars moving along a 10-lane freeway, and suddenly putting them through a one-lane tunnel. But the cars have to all arrive at their destinations at the same time they would have if the tunnel was 10 lanes wide. That means that the instant they enter the tunnel, the cars suddenly have to be going 10 times faster than they were before.

“This is a very ticklish device,” Daines said.

Right now, gigabit ethernet technology is a concept. But once the concept becomes reality, the companies that have the devices ready for the market will have a big advantage over those that do not.

Daines said the Packet-Symbios alliance will allow the companies to pool their unique expertise and gain an advantage on other companies trying to achieve the same results.

Packet Engines was founded by Daines in Spokane in 1994. Daines, who was a pioneer in megabit ethernet technology in the 1980s, initiated industry efforts to standardize gigabit ethernet technology.

Symbios Logic was formed in 1995 as a wholly-owned independently operated subsidiary of Hyundai Electronics America.

, DataTimes