SCSI and LVD

Building on its long tradition of industry leadership in SCSI cable technology,  prototyping and manufacturing low voltage differential (LVD) SCSI cables. Please E-Mail or call our Sales or Technical Support group with your specific LVD requirements.

The low voltage differential (LVD) SCSI  standard is being developed by the X3T10 SCSI Parallel Interface 2 (SPI-2) working group charged with extending the viability of parallel SCSI I/O technology into the twenty-first century. LVD is a robust design methodology that improves power consumption, data integrity, cable lengths and support for multiple devices, while providing a migration path for increased I/O performance.

The new SCSI standard reduces the power needed to drive the bus, lowers the amplitude of noise reflections, and allows for higher transmission frequencies. The differential signaling does an excellent job of canceling out signal noise due to external sources allowing  systems to utilize up to 12 meter cable lengths while attaching up to 16 devices to an LVD SCSI bus.

Ultra2, the newest of the SCSI standards, can transfer up to 80MB/sec across the entire SCSI bus, or approximately 2x the speed of UltraWide SCSI and up to 8x the speed of conventional Fast SCSI. This new standard also utilizes a new transceiver technology called Low-Voltage Differential (LVD), offering full compatibility with older SCSI devices while increasing the total cable length to 12 meters.  In addition, the low voltage/current component of the LVD bus allows transceivers to be implemented in 3.3V CMOS.

Companies already jumping on the Ultra2 adapter bandwagon include: Adaptec (2940U2W), ATTO (ExpressPCI Ultra2/WIDE), Diamond (FirePort 80 LVD), Initio (INI-9100U2W), QLogic (QLA1080), Symbios Logic (SYM895IU), and Tekram. Most, if not all, of these products are expected  to ship in early 1998.