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Alacritech
Alacritech was a Silicon Valley company which marketed "intelligent" network interface controllers (NICs) to offload TCP/IP processing from the CPU of computer systems to dedicated hardware on the NIC: a concept now known as a TCP offload engine (TOE). Later it manufactured storage network products. Alacritech's main products were the ANX 1500 series of network throughput acceleration appliances. History Alacritech was founded in 1997 by Larry Boucher, the author of the SCSI standard and founder of both Auspex Systems and Adaptec. The company's network interface cards (NICs) were promoted for enhanced performance by moving some TCP/IP processing from the CPU to the NIC. In 2004, Alacritech sued Microsoft and Broadcom for patent infringement. The suits were settled in 2005 with both companies agreeing to license the Alacritech patents. In 2008 Alacritech decided that the TOE / NIC business was not sufficient to sustain a viably growing company, and changed its focus to lever ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
TCP Offload Engine
TCP offload engine (TOE) is a technology used in some network interface cards (NIC) to offload processing of the entire TCP/IP stack to the network controller. It is primarily used with high-speed network interfaces, such as gigabit Ethernet and 10 Gigabit Ethernet, where processing overhead of the network stack becomes significant. TOEs are often used as a way to reduce the overhead associated with Internet Protocol (IP) storage protocols such as iSCSI and Network File System (NFS). Purpose Originally Transmission Control Protocol, TCP was designed for unreliable low speed networks (such as early dial-up modems) but with the growth of the Internet in terms of Internet backbone, backbone transmission speeds (using Optical Carrier, Gigabit Ethernet and 10 Gigabit Ethernet links) and faster and more reliable access mechanisms (such as digital subscriber line, DSL and cable modems) it is frequently used in data centers and desktop personal computer, PC environments at speeds of over 1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Auspex Systems
Auspex Systems was a computer data storage company founded in 1987 by Larry Boucher, who was previously CEO of Adaptec. It was headquartered in Santa Clara, California. Auspex introduced the first network-attached storage (NAS) devices. After an initial public offering in 1993, shares were traded on the NASDAQ exchange under symbol ASPX. One of the unique features of their systems was the ease with which volumes could be transparently mirrored and migrated between physical disks. Auspex systems used Functional Multiprocessing, essentially Asymmetric multiprocessing, that allowed the systems to scale functions independently -- such as networking, file processing, or storage processing. There was a Host Processor running Unix that controlled the whole system. This 'system within a system' could even be rebooted without interrupting file servicing. They became a leading provider of data center storage in the mid-1990s but fell behind NetApp in the field. Early cabinet rack models held ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Private Company
A privately held company (or simply a private company) is a company whose shares and related rights or obligations are not offered for public subscription or publicly negotiated in the respective listed markets, but rather the company's stock is offered, owned, traded, exchanged privately, or Over-the-counter (finance), over-the-counter. In the case of a closed corporation, there are a relatively small number of shareholders or company members. Related terms are closely-held corporation, unquoted company, and unlisted company. Though less visible than their public company, publicly traded counterparts, private companies have major importance in the world's economy. In 2008, the 441 list of largest private non-governmental companies by revenue, largest private companies in the United States accounted for ($1.8 trillion) in revenues and employed 6.2 million people, according to ''Forbes''. In 2005, using a substantially smaller pool size (22.7%) for comparison, the 339 companies on ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that serves as a global center for high technology and innovation. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it corresponds roughly to the geographical areas San Mateo County and Santa Clara County. San Jose is Silicon Valley's largest city, the third-largest in California, and the tenth-largest in the United States; other major Silicon Valley cities include Sunnyvale, Santa Clara, Redwood City, Mountain View, Palo Alto, Menlo Park, and Cupertino. The San Jose Metropolitan Area has the third-highest GDP per capita in the world (after Zurich, Switzerland and Oslo, Norway), according to the Brookings Institution, and, as of June 2021, has the highest percentage of homes valued at $1 million or more in the United States. Silicon Valley is home to many of the world's largest high-tech corporations, including the headquarters of more than 30 businesses in the Fortune 1000, and thousands of startup companies ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Network Interface Controller
A network interface controller (NIC, also known as a network interface card, network adapter, LAN adapter or physical network interface, and by similar terms) is a computer hardware component that connects a computer to a computer network. Early network interface controllers were commonly implemented on expansion cards that plugged into a computer bus. The low cost and ubiquity of the Ethernet standard means that most newer computers have a network interface built into the motherboard, or is contained into a USB-connected dongle. Modern network interface controllers offer advanced features such as interrupt and DMA interfaces to the host processors, support for multiple receive and transmit queues, partitioning into multiple logical interfaces, and on-controller network traffic processing such as the TCP offload engine. Purpose The network controller implements the electronic circuitry required to communicate using a specific physical layer and data link layer standard such ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Adaptec
Adaptec was a computer storage company and remains a brand for computer storage products. The company was an independent firm from 1981 to 2010, at which point it was acquired by PMC-Sierra, which itself was later acquired by Microsemi, which itself was later acquired by Microchip Technology. History Larry Boucher, Wayne Higashi, and Bernard Nieman founded Adaptec in 1981. At first, Adaptec focused on devices with Parallel SCSI interfaces. Popular host bus adapters included the 154x/15xx ISA family, the 2940 PCI family, and the 29160/-320 family. Their cross-platform ASPI was an early API for accessing and integrating non- disk devices like tape drives, scanners and optical disks. With advancements in technology, RAID functions were added while interfaces evolved to PCIe and SAS. On May 10, 2010, PMC-Sierra, Inc. and Adaptec, Inc. announced they had entered into a definitive agreement of PMC-Sierra acquiring Adaptec's channel storage business on May 8, 2010, which includ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Network Card
A network interface controller (NIC, also known as a network interface card, network adapter, LAN adapter or physical network interface, and by similar terms) is a computer hardware component that connects a computer to a computer network. Early network interface controllers were commonly implemented on expansion cards that plugged into a computer bus. The low cost and ubiquity of the Ethernet standard means that most newer computers have a network interface built into the motherboard, or is contained into a USB-connected dongle. Modern network interface controllers offer advanced features such as interrupt and DMA interfaces to the host processors, support for multiple receive and transmit queues, partitioning into multiple logical interfaces, and on-controller network traffic processing such as the TCP offload engine. Purpose The network controller implements the electronic circuitry required to communicate using a specific physical layer and data link layer standard su ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
TCP/IP
The Internet protocol suite, commonly known as TCP/IP, is a framework for organizing the set of communication protocols used in the Internet and similar computer networks according to functional criteria. The foundational protocols in the suite are the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP), the User Datagram Protocol (UDP), and the Internet Protocol (IP). In the development of this networking model, early versions of it were known as the Department of Defense (DoD) model because the research and development were funded by the United States Department of Defense through DARPA. The Internet protocol suite provides end-to-end data communication specifying how data should be packetized, addressed, transmitted, routed, and received. This functionality is organized into four abstraction layers, which classify all related protocols according to each protocol's scope of networking. An implementation of the layers for a particular application forms a protocol stack. From lowest to high ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Central Processing Unit
A central processing unit (CPU), also called a central processor, main processor or just processor, is the electronic circuitry that executes instructions comprising a computer program. The CPU performs basic arithmetic, logic, controlling, and input/output (I/O) operations specified by the instructions in the program. This contrasts with external components such as main memory and I/O circuitry, and specialized processors such as graphics processing units (GPUs). The form, design, and implementation of CPUs have changed over time, but their fundamental operation remains almost unchanged. Principal components of a CPU include the arithmetic–logic unit (ALU) that performs arithmetic and logic operations, processor registers that supply operands to the ALU and store the results of ALU operations, and a control unit that orchestrates the fetching (from memory), decoding and execution (of instructions) by directing the coordinated operations of the ALU, registers and other co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washington, United States. Its best-known software products are the Windows line of operating systems, the Microsoft Office suite, and the Internet Explorer and Edge web browsers. Its flagship hardware products are the Xbox video game consoles and the Microsoft Surface lineup of touchscreen personal computers. Microsoft ranked No. 21 in the 2020 Fortune 500 rankings of the largest United States corporations by total revenue; it was the world's largest software maker by revenue as of 2019. It is one of the Big Five American information technology companies, alongside Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, and Meta. Microsoft was founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen on April 4, 1975, to develop and sell BASIC interpreters for the Altair 8800. It rose to do ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Broadcom
Broadcom Inc. is an American designer, developer, manufacturer and global supplier of a wide range of semiconductor and infrastructure software products. Broadcom's product offerings serve the data center, networking, software, broadband, wireless, and storage and industrial markets. Tan Hock Eng is the company's president and CEO. The company is headquartered in San Jose, California. Avago Technologies Limited took the Broadcom part of the Broadcom Corporation name after acquiring it in January 2016. The ticker symbol AVGO that represented old Avago now represents the new merged entity. The Broadcom Corporation ticker symbol BRCM was retired. Broadcom has a long history of corporate transactions (or attempted transactions) with other prominent corporations mainly in the high-technology space. In October 2019, the European Union issued an interim antitrust order against Broadcom concerning anticompetitive business practices which allegedly violate European Union competition l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Patent
A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A patent is not the grant of a right to make or use or sell. It does not, directly or indirectly, imply any such right. It grants only the right to exclude others. The supposition that a right to make is created by the patent grant is obviously inconsistent with the established distinctions between generic and specific patents, and with the well-known fact that a very considerable portion of the patents granted are in a field covered by a former relatively generic or basic patent, are tributary to such earlier patent, and cannot be practiced unless by license thereunder." – ''Herman v. Youngstown Car Mfg. Co.'', 191 F. 579, 584–85, 112 CCA 185 (6th Cir. 1911) In most countries, patent rights fall under private law and the patent holder mus ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
