Controllers Deliver Greater than Two Million IOPS and Expanders Provide 68 Ports of SAS Connectivity to Enable Mainstream SSD Deployment

SUNNYVALE, Calif., January 31, 2012 – PMC-Sierra, Inc., (Nasdaq:PMCS) or PMC, the semiconductor innovator transforming storage, optical and mobile networks, today announced availability of its 12Gb/s SAS protocol controllers, RAID-on-Chip (RoC) controllers and expanders to enable breakthrough performance and scalability for server and networked storage. High-performance solid state drives (SSDs) can deliver up to 100 times more I/Os per second (IOPS) than traditional hard disk drives (HDDs), creating the need for a new class of storage controller. PMC’s 12Gb/s SAS controllers are optimized for performance to solve this need and release the full potential of SSDs. With the addition of the industry’s highest port count expanders, PMC’s 12Gb/s solution delivers 40 percent more drive connectivity than competitive solutions, enabling a new generation of scalable tiered storage for corporate and cloud data centers.

“Building on the market leadership of our 6Gb/s SAS products, PMC is pleased to announce the availability of the industry’s leading 12Gb/s controller and expander products,” said Derek Dicker, vice president of marketing for PMC’s Enterprise Storage Division. “With the most advanced integration and the highest performance available, our customers can design systems that scale with the exponential growth in storage data at the lowest cost and power.”

Demonstrations of PMC’s Tachyon® 12Gb/s SAS controllers have delivered well over two million IOPS with a single 16-port controller running small block sequential reads connected to 6Gb/s SAS drives via PMC SAS expanders. PMC’s controllers provide more than double the performance of competing 12Gb/s SAS controllers, which enables OEM storage solutions to fully harness the capabilities of the latest SSDs and improve the performance of large-scale HDD topologies.

PMC’s 16-port controller provides twice the port density than competitive solutions. Combined with PMC’s 68-port SXP 12G expander, OEMs can double overall storage system capacity, while reducing components and saving board real estate and power. PMC’s expanders have 40 percent more SAS ports and can scale to support double the number of drives than competitive products, enabling customers to build solutions that span from entry-level to high-end markets. 12Gb/s SAS provides the increased throughput needed for these scale-out architectures.

Tachyon SPCv 12G protocol controllers
PMC’s 12Gb/s SAS protocol controllers support all of the enterprise-class features that make the 6Gb/s devices the most adopted controllers in external storage systems, including line-rate encryption and hardware acceleration for INCITS industry-standard T10 DIF data protection.

• PM8070: Tachyon SPCv 12G eight-port SAS/SATA controller
• PM8071: Tachyon SPCve 12G eight-port SAS/SATA controller, with integrated StorClad™ encryption technology
• PM8072: Tachyon SPCv 12G 16-port SAS/SATA controller
• PM8073: Tachyon SPCve 12G 16-port SAS/SATA controller, with integrated StorClad encryption technology

SXP 12G expanders
The SXP 12G expanders leverage PMC’s advanced silicon integration techniques and leading-edge mixed signal design to deliver the industry’s highest port density and best-in-class signal integrity.

• PM8053: SXP 12G 24-port SAS/SATA expander
• PM8054: SXP 12G 36-port SAS/SATA expander
• PM8055: SXP 12G 48-port SAS/SATA expander
• PM8056: SXP 12G 68-port SAS/SATA expander

SRCv 12G RoCs
The SRCv 12G RoCs integrate the latest in host, drive and memory interface standards with RAID hardware acceleration and an advanced multi-core processor subsystem.

• PM8060: SRCv 12G eight-port SAS/SATA RoC
• PM8063: SRCv 12G 16-port SAS/SATA RoC

Availability
PMC’s 12Gb/s SAS protocol controllers, RoCs and expanders are available now. For more information, including datasheets and pricing, please visit www.pmc-sierra.com/storage or contact PMC at
sales@pmc-sierra.com.

About PMC’s Server and Storage System Solutions
PMC is a leading provider of enterprise storage system solutions for networked and server storage applications, with a broad portfolio SAS/SATA and Fibre Channel protocol controllers, RAID controllers and SAS and FC disk interconnect products. PMC’s Tachyon protocol controllers, Fibre Channel loop switches, enclosure management controllers and maxSAS™ expander switches and multiplexers provide the industry’s most comprehensive solution. Together, these products provide end-to-end semiconductor and software solutions to the industry’s leading storage OEMs and ODMs. For more information, visit www.pmc-sierra.com/storage.

About PMC
PMC (Nasdaq:PMCS) is the semiconductor innovator transforming networks that connect, move and store digital content. Building on a track record of technology leadership, PMC is driving innovation across storage, optical and mobile networks. The company’s highly integrated solutions increase performance and enable next-generation services to accelerate the network transformation. For more information, visit www.pmc-sierra.com. Follow PMC on Twitter, LinkedIn and
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© Copyright PMC-Sierra, Inc. 2012. All rights reserved. PMC, PMC-SIERRA, Tachyon and “Enabling connectivity. Empowering people.” are registered trademarks of PMC-Sierra, Inc. in the United States and other countries, PMCS, StorClad and maxSAS are trademarks of PMC-Sierra, Inc. Other product and company names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.