Finisar Corporation (NASDAQ: FNSR), a global technology leader in fiber optic components and network testing, today announced it has developed the first protocol analyzer to support CE-ATA, the storage interface for next-generation portable consumer electronics devices. Finisar's Bus Doctor RX™ Protocol Analyzer provides consumer electronics designers and manufacturers with a critical tool for analyzing and diagnosing the rapidly growing storage needs of MP3 players, multimedia cell phones, digital cameras, and other consumer products. Offering both logic analysis and protocol analysis simultaneously within a single, integrated platform, Bus Doctor will save manufacturers money by eliminating a need for separate logic and protocol analysis instruments.


"Finisar is a market leader in testing Fibre Channel and SAS/Serial ATA storage devices. Addressing the growing consumer electronics market is a natural extension of our protocol expertise," said Paul Hansen, vice president of marketing at Finisar.


In addition to CE-ATA, Finisar's Bus Doctor RX supports nearly a dozen other popular protocols, including USB, Serial ATA, ATA, and Compact Flash. This capability allows storage manufacturers to analyze multiple protocols concurrently to ensure interoperability and standards compliance.


"With the 1.0 specification just published in March of this year, availability of CE-ATA products and development tools in such a short timeframe demonstrates the momentum for the CE-ATA initiative," said Knut Grimsrud, chairman of the CE-ATA working group and Intel senior principal engineer. "Availability of world-class analysis tools for CE-ATA, such as those from Finisar, is a critical step in supporting the development of CE-ATA products, and will further accelerate the introduction of exciting new consumer products based on CE-ATA technology."


Exponential Demand for Consumer Devices Drives Need for Test Tools


According to a report issued by InStat Research last month, shipments of disk drives to the consumer electronics segment will increase from 40 million units in 2004 to almost 240 million units by 2009 due to the growing popularity of PDAs, camcorders and mobile phones.


Hitachi plans to deliver a version of its Microdrive 3K8 miniature hard drive with support for the CE-ATA interface. "The hard drive industry is aggressively ramping up to support the tremendous growth in consumer devices and accompanying storage requirements," said Becky Smith, Vice President of Marketing for Hitachi Global Storage Technologies. "In supporting CE-ATA, the Microdrive 3K8 meets the specific needs of CE device manufacturers, such as low pin-count, low voltage, power efficiency, cost-effectiveness and integration efficiency. Finisar's Bus Doctor RX is well-timed to provide the test tools that customers will use when integrating our CE-ATA-based miniature hard drive."


Finisar's Bus Doctor RX will be available in Q1 2006 through the company's regular sales and distribution channels.


About Finisar


Finisar Corporation (NASDAQ: FNSR) is a technology leader for fiber optic components and subsystems, and network test and monitoring systems. These products enable high-speed data communications for networking and storage applications over Gigabit Ethernet local area networks (LANs), Fibre Channel storage area networks (SANs), and metropolitan area networks (MANs) using Fibre Channel, IP, SAS, SATA and SONET/SDH protocols. The company has its headquarters in Sunnyvale, California. For more information, visit www.finisar.com.


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SOURCE: Finisar