Thomas V Spencer

A workstation I/O system on a chip

Describes the I/O sub-system for the new low-end of HPs Series 700 family of workstations. The paper focuses on the single piece of custom VLSI that serves as the heart of the I/O sub-system. This chip was optimized to minimize the manufacturing cost of the system while maintaining functional compatibility and comparable performance with existing members of the Series 700 family. A wide range of functionalities from a variety of sources (including outside vendors) was combined on a single piece of silicon to obtain an optimal balance between manufacturing cost, performance, and software compatibility.<<ETX>>