Comtech AHA Announces 10 Gigabits/sec High Speed GZIP Data Compression Board

The AHA367-PCIe allows network transmission and network storage appliance customers to significantly reduce the amount of data that is transferred through or stored within their systems. Along with reducing latency, bandwidth and storage requirements, it also eases the loading of precious resources inside of these appliances by off-loading the data compression task from the core Central Processing Units (CPUs).

The system is based on Comtech AHA’s AHA3610 design -- the industry’s first-ever GZIP compression and decompression integrated circuit (IC), which offers up to 2.5 Gbits/sec throughput via hardware, while also giving significant power saving over GZIP software compression.

The architecture of the AHA367-PCIe card allows for easy migration for current customers of the existing AHA363-PCIe card with little or no changes to existing software drivers required. “With the announcement of the AHA367-PCIe high speed compression card, Comtech AHA has again demonstrated our commitment to the GZIP data compression market,” stated Bill Thomson, president, Comtech AHA. “This Compression Board, coupled with our GZIP Compression IC, solidifies our leadership position in this growing facet of the networking and storage industry. Because our products are based on open standard algorithms and do not require license fees or royalties, they are a compelling choice over competing solutions while delivering the highest performance level.”

Based on the Open Standard GZIP Data Compression Algorithm, the AHA367-PCIe card supports full-duplex streaming of over 10.0 Gbits/sec uncompressed data using an industry standard X8 lane PCI-Express Interface. The system achieves GZIP compression ratios at an average of three to one.