"Glueless" interoperability is achieved between Montego and PowerPRS Q-64G through mutual support of the Network Processor Forum's Common Switch Interface Consortium (CSIX). With mutual support for "over speed" the IDS can demonstrate operation of up to 16Gbps between the Montego NPU/TM and the PowerPRS Switch Fabric, an industry first for a system using products from more than one vendor. Bay Microsystems and IBM will also provide all schematics, simulation models and board support packages (BSP) in order to speed development of customer end systems.

"IBM is a dominant player in the switch fabric market and Bay Microsystems' announcement should be viewed as a significant accomplishment by both parties," said Eric Mantion, Senior Analyst for In-Stat/MDR. "The smaller OEMs should find that this advancement will significantly accelerate their time-to-market in many of the most coveted markets such as Wireless Infrastructure Equipment and Metro Optical Switching platforms."

"Many component companies allude to interoperability, but few actually put their own hardware to task," said Chuck Gershman, co-founder and senior vice president at Bay Microsystems. "With advanced hierarchical scheduling, shaping and flow control mechanisms, Montego provides the most sophisticated traffic management features available in the industry at OC192c data rates. Coupling these capabilities with IBM's PowerPRS Q-64G switch fabric provides our customers with a solution that sets a new standard for performance, functionality, and low power in a ready to implement system."

The IDS is an application ready platform allowing network system OEMs to directly port value added application code today. The platform includes a Host OS, TCP/IP stack, Java GUI, CLI and SAS. As a development environment, the IDS supports software development and hardware emulation and also provide developers with a complete system reference design. Bay's own NEXTware™ (Network Engine XTension software suite) API, Cycle/pipeline Accurate Simulator Environment (CASE), performance and functional analysis tools and application library modules are also included. With the addition IBM PowerPRS Fabric Interface Card (iFABIO) the system provides direct connection to IBM's PowerPRS Q-64G Reference Platform.

PartnerWorld for Developers is the developer resource for IBM Business Partners. The Program provides a broad range of benefits at all membership levels. Members of PartnerWorld for Developers have access to a growing number of offerings to help business partners lower development costs and go to market faster with complementary solutions.

Bay Microsystems, Inc. is a privately held, fabless communication IC company. Bay's Internetworking Processor™ (InP) Family of programmable packet processing devices combines scalability, intelligence processing and ultra-high performance in highly integrated solutions. The InP Family includes Montego™, the industry's first single-chip highly integrated OC192c/10G Network Processor and Traffic Manager with switching. Bay's highly experienced management and world-class engineering team have three generations of proven expertise in architecture, implementation, deployment, marketing and management of network processors. For more information visit the website at www.baymicrosystems.com.

Bay Microsystems, Internetworking Processor, Montego, and NEXTware are trademarks of Bay Microsystems. All other company names are trademarks of their respective holders.