Features - Storage Innovations:

FUJITSU DELIVERS 2.5-INCH SATA HDD W/ NATIVE COMMAND QUEUING

Fujitsu Computer Products of America Inc, one of the world's leading suppliers of hard disk drives and computer peripherals, announced that Fujitsu has delivered the first 2.5-inch 5400RPM Serial ATA hard disk drives to selected customers to begin compatibility testing. Fujitsu's 2.5-inch Serial ATA hard disk drives include Marvell's system on chip that supports the SATA Extensions (SATA II, Phase I) including Native Command Queuing and 1.5Gbps performance. Fujitsu's 2.5-inch 5400RPM Serial ATA hard disk drives are intended for use in blade servers, mobile products, and consumer applications.

Fujitsu 2.5-inch Serial ATA mobile hard disk drives offer increased performance and reduced power consumption, benefits that are especially important to manufacturers of portable, battery operated products like laptop computers. Fujitsu is able to develop 2.5-inch Serial ATA interface hard disk drives at a price point that rivals traditional parallel ATA products due to Marvell's single chip 88i6535 Serial ATA SOC, which eliminates the need for a bridge chip. Additionally, Fujitsu's 2.5-inch Serial ATA hard disk drives include Native Command Queuing. Native Command Queuing allows up to 32 instructions to be queued and reordered by the hard disk controller, contributing to significant improvement in overall hard disk drive performance.

"Fujitsu's leadership in development of the Serial ATA interface with Marvell has enabled the technology required to deliver the first true native command queuing SATA mobile disk drives," said Chuck Nielsen, chief technologist of Fujitsu Computer Products of America. "Fujitsu is able to leverage Marvell's SOC to deliver the performance and queuing capabilities required to enable the SATA interface to become the standard for mobile high-quality performance at relatively low cost."

"Marvell is pleased with the successful introduction of the 88i6535 Serial ATA SOC and the role Fujitsu played in that process," stated Dr. Alan J. Armstrong, vice president of marketing for Storage Business Group at Marvell. "As Fujitsu begins to sample its drives featuring our device to customers for testing, together we are one step closer to bringing single-chip 2.5-inch Serial ATA hard disk drives to market."