S2io Calls Out Intel

Startup S2io Technologies Corp. today announced its plans for the 10-Gbit/s server adapter market, and the company's roadmap puts it on a collision course with Intel Corp. (Nasdaq: INTC).

All right, it's not that dramatic. S2io makes 10-Gbit/s server adapter cards for connecting boxes within a data center, and Intel so far is the only competitor. Still, S2io claims it can outdo Intel in performance and hopes to give the chip giant some fits as 10-Gbit/s connections make their way into the data center.

At the Gartner ITExpo this week, S2io is showing its Xframe card for the first time. The demo includes a Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: CSCO) Catalyst 6500 switch and a Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE: HPQ) server (see S2io Demos 10-Gig Ethernet Card).

The company's customers are the OEMs themselves, which would include the card as a feature inside a switch or other system. S2io won't start production shipments until the first quarter of 2004, but its cards are being evaluated in six OEMs' labs, says vice president of marketing Kimball Brown.

The S2io team comes from Alteon, which made the same product but at Gigabit Ethernet speeds. S2io's founders left after Alteon was acquired by Nortel Networks Corp. (NYSE/Toronto: NT).The key to competing with Intel will be to get more bandwidth out of the PCI-X bus, which is what connects the card to a server. Theoretically, the bus can carry 8 Gbit/s of data, but in practice that's been topping out at 6.5 Gbit/s, Brown says. S2io's trick, of course, is to come up with a bigger number -- 7 Gbit/s in this case. And hopefully, Brown says, the next iteration of the PCI-X standard will allow server adapter cards to run at a full 10 Gbit/s.

That kind of ramp-up is normal, Brown says: "When 1 Gbit/s [Ethernet] started out, it was only 200 [kbit/s] to 300 [kbit/s]. It got better as time went on."

S2io employs 47, with headquarters split between Cupertino, Calif., and Ottawa. The company has raised $27 million in two rounds of funding from investors including Menlo Ventures, VenGrowth Investment Fund Inc., and the Business Development Bank of Canada. The latest round came at the end of 2002 and should sustain the company through 2004, Brown says (see S2IO Raises $18M Round).

Craig Matsumoto, Senior Editor, Light Reading