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'Wrap-A-Ho? Wazzat?': Page 3 of 3

The PCI-SIG has its work cut out, though, as the punters aren’t the only ones who are confused. Intel’s 3GIO partners aren’t exactly crystal on the message either. “There are striking similarities between the InfiniBand and 3GIO,” says Margit Evensta, SCSI product manager at LSI Logic Corp. (NYSE: LSI), a company building SCSI controllers that connect to whatever PCI interface is on the other end. “Intel steals with pride from other interfaces, which makes things confusing,” she says.

The Arapahoe Work Group plans to hand over the 3GIO specification to the PCI-SIG in early 2002. Test equipment and tools will likely appear in late 2003, and the first desktop computers using 3GIO will begin to emerge in mid to late 2004.

Of course, true timelines depend on the market acceptance -- and on whether Intel comes up with yet another I/O architecture in the meantime.

— Jo Maitland, Senior Editor, Byte and Switch http://www.byteandswitch.com