Cambridge, UK-based Advanced Telecommunications Modules Ltd has outlined its product plans for its low-cost variant of Asynchronous Transfer Mode, announced last week (CI No 2,496). Products based on the technology are to be sold both by Advanced Telecommunications and by the First Virtual Corp venture formed by Ralph Ungermann, formerly of Ungermann-Bass. First Virtual says the agreement between the two companies covers joint development and cross-licensing. While the underlying technology will be the same, the two companies have a slightly different emphasis: Advanced Telecommunications will concentrate on network components and First Virtual will emphasise software and the applications that use it. Advanced Telecommunications is a spin-off from Ing C Olivetti & Co SpA, which is its main backer, along with other venture capital companies and private investors. Its exclusive technology was developed by Olivetti Research Ltd, also Cambridge-based. Advanced Telecommunications says it has focussed its efforts on ‘Asynchronous Transfer Mode-enabling’ personal computers currently connected to the workgroup local area network. The company claims that, through a combination of low cost, use of users’ existing wiring and coexistence with Ethernet networks, it will bring Asynchronous Mode technology into direct competition with Switched Ethernet alternatives. First Virtual is due to announce specific product plans this week but Advanced Telecommunications has already been talking about what is to come. The company’s first products, to be available from the beginning of next year, will include workgroup switches, personal computer network interface boards and a multimedia server called DiskBric. Initial versions of the network interface boards will be produced for unshielded twisted pair 3 at 25Mbps, designed to operate over the AT bus. This will be followed by a Peripheral Component Interconnect version.
PCI version follows
Network interface boards supporting the Asynchronous Mode Transfer standards of 100Mbps and 151Mbps, targetted for the workstation environment, have also been developed, says the company, and will be released later next year. Advanced Telecommunications says it has developed a single chip for embedded Asynchronous Mode Transfer controller applications. The chip, called the AToM, is said to have an embedded 32-bit RISC processor; supports multiple Asynchronous Mode and general purpose interfaces. Real-time software running on the chip will support Asynchronous Mode functions and also perform local switching, says Advanced Telecommunications. It claims that this methodology will enable Asynchronous Mode standards to be tracked as they continue to evolve. Advanced Telecommunications plans to market its application-specific integrated circuits to third party vendors to use in their systems and thereby accelerate Asynchronous Mode deployment to the desktop. According to First Virtual, the terms of its agreement with Advanced Telecommunications mean that other than the latter and its Olivetti parent, no other companies will be able to license the core technology on which the products will be based, without its agreement. Initially First Virtual plans to concentrate on the US and to a certain extent the Far East, with Europe later. It plans to build up a network of distributors to sell the products.
