RapidIO Connections - July 2002
President's Message
Dear Members,
For our new members, thank you for taking the important step of joining the RapidIO Trade Association. I hope that you will find the trade association to be a vital component of your success. I have been personally involved with the RapidIO technology for over five years now and am thrilled by the acceptance it has found in the industry. I remain fully convinced that RapidIO addresses a very real technological problem and that it will revolutionize the way embedded systems are built. I believe you will find the people involved in the RapidIO Trade Association to be first-rate engineers, managers and marketers who are committed to the success of the technology.
Recognition and New Members
I am pleased to report that the RapidIO specification has been widely recognized as a tremendous advancement in the state of the art for system-level interconnect technologies. In the past year, there have been over 350 articles published about RapidIO and EDN Magazine recently named the three founding contributors, Dan Bouvier, Robert Frisch and Bryan Marietta, as the 2001 Innovators of the Year for their work in creating the RapidIO interconnect architecture.
Furthermore, several of the leading equipment providers have decided to base future systems on RapidIO, which has led to multiple RFPs specifying RapidIO-based processors, RapidIO switches and RapidIO bridges. This has resulted in a flurry of activity among existing RapidIO product developers as well as the addition of new companies to the trade association. To name just some of the notable companies that have joined over the last several months: Analog Devices, Inc., Cadence System Design, Cypress Semiconductor, IDT (Integrated Device Technology), National Semiconductor, PMC-Sierra, Synopsys, Texas Instruments; and RTOS vendors QNX Software Systems, Wind River Systems and OSE Systems.
I also want to recognize the unveiling of the Intrinsity FastMIPS and FASTMath processors (see the "In the News" section). These MIPS architecture-based processors offer a clock frequency of 2 GHz, integrated 1 MB of cache, DDR memory controller and include dual 8-bit RapidIO ports for connectivity. Intrinsity reports that these devices will be sampled to the industry before the end of the year. These are terrific examples of the kinds of next-generation products that will change the way we think about microprocessors and interconnects.
August General Membership Meeting
Mark your calendars now for the RapidIO General Membership Meeting. This annual event is scheduled for August 22nd, in conjunction with the TWG (Technical Working Group) and MWG (Marketing Working Group) meetings at the Techmart Conference Center in Santa Clara, Calif.
The RapidIO General Membership Meeting provides an opportunity to share your products. This year we hope to be able to demonstrate products from member companies and the meeting also provides an opportunity to share your views with the trade association's President and Steering Committee.
As a show of appreciation for all of the hard work contributed by our members, the RapidIO Trade Association also has reserved a block of seats at Pacific Bell Park for a Major League ballgame between the San Francisco Giants and New York Mets on Wednesday, August 21st. The game starts at 7:00 p.m. and we will have a bus ready to leave from the meeting site at 5:00 p.m. to take us to the game and then return us back afterwards. All participating members of the TWG, MWG and Steering Committee are invited to attend.
Summary
The RapidIO Trade Association is actively working to support its member companies in the successful introduction of RapidIO-based products to the market. It is my job to help your company be successful with RapidIO. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or items that need the attention of the trade association.
Best regards,
Sam Fuller
President, RapidIO Trade Association
