Applied Micro Circuits Corporation : AppliedMicro's Catalina SoC Improves Streaming Performance by 10X in Connected Digital Homes With World's First Integrated USB 3.0

APM86491 embedded processor accelerates file transfers in network storage and wireless access point systems for industry leading storing, streaming and sharing experience

International CES -- Applied Micro Circuits Corporation (NASDAQ:AMCC), or AppliedMicro, today announced it will showcase Catalina APM86491, the world's first embedded processing SoC with two integrated USB 3.0 interfaces, enabling a 10X improvement in video streaming throughput. With the industry's best networking performance, richest feature set and lowest power consumption, Catalina makes the ideal processing solution for storing, streaming and sharing applications in the connected digital home.

Targeted for the next generation consumer Network Attached Storage (NAS) and Wireless Access Point (WAP) solutions, Catalina unifies enterprise-class performance with the needs of today's digitally connected consumer. The Catalina device integrates several application-aware offload engines supporting a enterprise class QoS engine, TCP offload engines for both transport and receive, and a high-speed packet classification engine. These accelerators enable support for high-quality sharing of video, photos, audio and other digital files through any connected consumer device. No other competing SoC in the market place today offers Catalina's two integrated USB 3.0 ports - one host port and an "On-The-Go" (OTG) port - supporting bandwidth up to 5 Gbits/sec each. At speeds of 370MBytes per second, the SoC enables transfer rates 10X faster than competing NAS and WAP solutions with USB 2.0 ports.

"This is the breakout year for USB 3.0 as it gains momentum in a wide range of mobility and PC computing platforms. AppliedMicro is providing the ability to seamlessly combine storage and wireless streaming at multi gigabit transfer rates to enable a new level of consumer multimedia experience," said Vinay Ravuri, Vice President and General Manager of the Embedded Processor Business Unit of AppliedMicro. "By leading the industry in the integration of dual USB 3.0 ports, the Catalina enables the delivery of enterprise-class performance and quality of service to the connected home at price points demanded by mainstream technology consumers."

The digital home is converging towards an all-in-one network appliance that serves as a router, wireless access point and a networked storage drive. AppliedMicro's designs for NAS and wireless access point solutions integrated together with USB 3.0 enable multiple simultaneous streams of video, audio and other digital files. The USB 3.0 connectivity pushes the envelope of transfer speeds to 5 Gbits/s, easing the ability to store, stream and share data, photos, music, videos. Files as large as 4 Gigabytes, such as a feature-length movie, can now be downloaded and shared in less than ten seconds. At 1/10 of the throughput, previous generations of solutions based on USB 2.0 ports were prohibitively slow for such transfers.

AppliedMicro's Catalina APM86491 is the industry's first embedded processor equipped to handle the bandwidth required from next-generation solutions. With line rate read/write performance for storage access, and high speed classification engines for traffic shaping multi gigabit streaming bandwidths, Catalina provides the ability to play multiple movies over the network in a power envelope of less than 3W. Integrating two USB 3.0 ports on chip eliminates the need for separate host adapters on system boards, and reduces bill-of-material costs by as much as $8. Additionally, two PCI Express® Gen 2 ports, up to two SATA-II ports and two 10/100/1000 Ethernet ports on a single device delivers the industry's best I/0 throughput.

AppliedMicro is demonstrating USB 3.0-enabled NAS and wireless access point designs at 2012 International CES, Jan. 10-13, in Meeting Room #MP26055 of the Las Vegas Convention Center.

The NAS and WAP reference designs by AppliedMicro provide consumer device manufacturers with the essential hardware and software elements to rapidly bring systems to market with the latest technology standards that improve performance and connectivity.

AppliedMicro Overview

AppliedMicro is a global leader in energy conscious computing solutions for telco, enterprise, data center, consumer and SMB applications. With a 30-year heritage as an innovator in high-speed connectivity and high performance embedded processing, AppliedMicro employs patented Power Architecture® SoCs to provide energy efficient products that can deliver up to a 40 percent reduction in power consumption without sacrificing performance. AppliedMicro's corporate headquarters are located in Sunnyvale, California. Sales and engineering offices are located throughout the world. For further information regarding AppliedMicro, visit the company's Web site at http://www.apm.com.

Applied Micro Circuits Corporation, AppliedMicro and the AppliedMicro logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Applied Micro Circuits Corporation. The Power Architecture and Power.org word marks and the Power and Power.org logos and related marks are trademarks and service marks licensed by Power.org. All other product or service names are the property of their respective owners.

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