The SATURN Development Group was an important industry forum that enabled the specification of chip-to-chip interfaces for the communications industry. It was co-founded in 1992 by PMC-Sierra and Sun Microsystems . Several significant specifications were completed through its actions including PL-2, PL-3 , and PL-4 . Many important semiconductor devices were developed to these specifications. SATURN was also influential in the specification of the ATM Forum 's physical layer "UTOPIA" standards.
6-675: Initial members included SynOptics and Interphase . The first meeting was held in April 1992. By August 1993, the SATURN group had 28 members. After the formation of the Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF), two of the SATURN group's interfaces were successfully adopted by OIF. The PL-3 specification became SPI-3 and the PL-4 specification became SPI-4.2 . The existence of the OIF also eliminated
12-404: A high of $ 700 million in 1993. To move away from the rapidly commoditizing Layer 1/2 Ethernet equipment market and grow their market share in the increasingly lucrative and more profitable Layer 3 networking arena, SynOptics merged with Billerica, Massachusetts based Wellfleet Communications on July 6, 1994, in a US$ 2.7 Billion dollar deal to form Bay Networks . SynOptics headquarters at
18-472: The 10BASE-T specification once it was published. Through the late 1980s and into the early 1990s, SynOptics produced a series of innovative products including early 10BASE-2 hubs, pre-standard (LattisNet), and 100BASE-TX products. The company was the market leader in Ethernet LAN hubs over rivals 3Com and Cabletron . Despite intense competition that drove down prices, Synoptics' annual revenue grew to
24-574: The need for the SATURN Development Group, and it was wound down around 2002. This computer hardware article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . SynOptics SynOptics Communications, Inc. , was a Santa Clara, California -based early computer network equipment vendor from 1985 until 1994. SynOptics popularized the concept of the modular Ethernet hub and high-speed Ethernet networking over copper twisted-pair and fiber optic cables. SynOptics Communications
30-523: The network much easier to manage and maintain. Together these two innovations directly led to the ubiquity of Ethernet networks. Before the final standard version of what is known today as the 10BASE-T protocol, there were several different methods and standards for running Ethernet over twisted-pair cabling at various speeds, such as StarLAN . LattisNet was similar to the final 10BASE-T protocol except that it had slightly different voltage and signal characteristics. Synoptics updated their product line to
36-444: Was founded in 1985 by Andrew K. Ludwick and Ronald V. Schmidt , both of whom worked at Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). The most significant product that Synoptics produced was LattisNet (originally named AstraNet) in 1987. This meant that unshielded twisted-pair cabling already installed in office buildings could be re-utilized for computer networking instead of special coaxial cables . The star network topology made
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