Press Releases

2005/02/02 RS-422/485 PCI I/O Cards Product Line Released Koutech Systems, has just added a new product line, the RS-422/485 PCI I/O cards; which have few great features; such as, AIS (Auto Identify & Switching), ARSC (Auto RTS Signal Control), Optical Isolation Protection, Surge Protection, 128Kbyte FIFO, Universal PCI slots compatibility, and many more. These PCI I/O cards are also WHQL certified to ensure 100% compatibility with your Windows systems. Universal PCI Supports 32-bit and 64-bit PCI slots with either 3.3V or 5V.  It is fully compliant with PCI specification version 2.2. 128Kbyte FIFO FIFO (First-In-First-Out) buffers decide the interrupt frequency of a computer; larger the buffer size, allows higher data transfer rate, reduces CPU resources, and increases system performance.  128Kbyte FIFO buffers are up to 1024 times faster than existing serial ports. Auto Identify & Switching RS-422/485 Technology Auto Identify & Switching RS-422/485 technology can automatically identify the state of operation on either RS-422 full-duplex or RS-485 half-duplex.  It can also control the data transceiver and receiver lines (wires) at the same port without the need of selecting jumpers or switches.  This allows users to avoid shutting down the system for jumpers or switches setting change. Optical Isolation Protection The ground loop is a common problem in many industrial environments.  Communication devices connected by long cables risk damage caused by the different ground voltage levels at both ends of the line.  Optical isolation uses photo cells at both ends of the line to isolate the sensitive components on the devices to prevent them from this type of electrical damage.  Our solution provides optical isolation of 2.5KV to eliminate this kind of problem. ARSC Technology Due to the limitation of traditional RS-485 two-wire half-duplex communication, system must determine when to turn the transmitter on or off.  There is only one node available that can turn the transmitter on or off at any given time by software.  The ARSCTM (Auto RTS Signal Control) technology identifies the status of data transceiver and/or receiver, and then automatically sends RTS signal to control the half-duplex protocol. Surge Protection Surges are high-amplitude electrical pulses last only several millionths of a second in duration.  They can be caused by heavy-duty equipments, power lines, short circuits, or large motors.  A surge suppressor has the ability to effectively absorb this high energy in any short period of time, to prevent the devices from damage. We provide the embedded surge protection of 600W.

2002/10/04 Serial ATA - An Overview An association of seven leading PC technology companies is developing a Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (ATA) storage interface for hard-disk drives (HDDs) and ATA Packet Interface (ATAPI) devices that is expected to replace the current Parallel ATA interface. Compared with Parallel ATA, Serial ATA will have lower signaling voltages and reduced pin count, will be faster and more robust, and will have a much smaller cable. Serial ATA will also be completely software compatible with Parallel ATA. The Serial ATA Working Group was formed in 1999 to begin work on the Serial ATA specification. Serial ATA Working Group member companies include APT Technologies, Dell, IBM, Intel, Maxtor, Quantum, and Seagate Technologies. To provide a framework for comparing the two interfaces, this article begins with a review of the current Parallel ATA interface technology, describes its strengths and weaknesses, and then introduces Parallel ATA's successor, Serial ATA. Overview of the ATA Interface Introduced in the 1980s, the Parallel ATA interface has been the dominant PC storage interface protocol for desktop and portable computers. Parallel ATA's relative simplicity, high performance, and low cost has enabled it to meet and maintain the cost/performance ratio that is essential in the mainstream desktop and portable computer systems market. Parallel ATA's longevity can be attributed to frequent improvements in the interface's speed and overall performance. For example, ATA's data transfer speed has increased steadily from an initial rate of less than 3 megabytes per second (MB/sec) to its current maximum burst data transfer rate of up to 66 MB/sec. Other evolutionary improvements that have helped the interface to keep up with overall internal system data rate requirements are described in the following section. Evolutionary Improvements Despite a number of limitations, constant evolutionary improvements in the ATA interface have enabled it to remain competitive with other storage interface technologies. Improvements include: • Enhanced Integrated Drive Electronics (EIDE) extensions for faster HDD access and logical block addressing (LBA) • ATAPI for support of other peripheral devices, such as CD-ROM drives and tape drives • Multiple data-transfer modes, including Programmed Input/Output (PIO), direct memory access (DMA), and Ultra DMA (UDMA) • Backward compatibility with older ATA devices • Cyclic redundancy checking (CRC) for improved data protection and greater overall data integrity Ultra ATA-66 to ATA-100 and ATA-133 Ultra ATA-133 is the latest-generation Parallel ATA interface. With its maximum burst data transfer rate of 133 MB/sec, it supersedes the current Ultra ATA-66 and ATA-100 interface. Ultra ATA-133 will likely be the last Parallel ATA interface before the industry completes its transition to Serial ATA. Limitations of the Parallel ATA Interface In spite of its success, the Parallel ATA interface has a long history of design issues. Most of these issues have been successfully worked around, overcome, or simply ignored. They include: • 5-volt signaling requirement and high pin count (40-pin cable connectors) • 18-inch cable length limitation; cable width and cable routing problems • Data robustness issues 5-Volt Signaling Requirement Parallel ATA's 5-volt signaling requirement will be increasingly difficult to meet as the industry continues to reduce chip core voltages. Parallel ATA has 26, 5-volt signals per ATA channel, requiring the use of large physical chip pads to accommodate the high pin count. As chip sizes are reduced, the large pads will ultimately dominate the chip. Cable Issues The 18-inch cable length limitation can be a serious issue with the current Parallel ATA interface. Depending on PC chassis size and the design and location of internal media bays, the limited cable length complicates peripheral expansion choices, making some internal drive configurations impossible to implement. The wide, flat ribbon cables of the Parallel ATA bus are difficult to route, and their shape and bulk can restrict air flow and create hot spots inside the chassis. Data Robustness Data robustness has been a long-standing issue with Parallel ATA. No form of data checking was designed into the Parallel ATA interface during its early development. However, when the first UDMA mode was introduced, a degree of data protection was added in the form of CRC, which enabled the verification of interface data for the first time. Unfortunately, ATA command data is still not checked and remains a potential error source. Alternative Interface Technologies In recent years, two alternative serial interface technologies—Universal Serial Bus (USB) and IEEE 1394—have been proposed as possible replacements for the Parallel ATA interface. However, neither interface has been able to offer the combination of low cost and high performance that has been the key to success of the traditional Parallel ATA interface. Universal Serial Bus USB is a supervised serial-bus architecture that provides manageable connectivity for a large number of external devices. Up to 127 devices can be supported from a single port in a tiered-star topology. USB version 1.1 supports two data transfer speeds—1.5 megabits per second (Mbps) and 12 Mbps. For now, USB 1.1 is best suited for low-cost, low-bandwidth external peripherals such as keyboards, mice, modems, and Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) connections. Second-generation USB version 2.0 offers maximum burst data transfer rates of up 480 Mbps. This higher speed makes USB 2.0 suitable for use with fast external storage devices. USB 2.0 storage products are expected to be available late in the year. IEEE 1394 IEEE 1394 is a high-speed serial bus that permits unsupervised peer-to-peer data transfers between peripherals. Currently it supports 100, 200, and 400 Mbps. Future extensions are expected to support data-transfer rates of 1.6 to 3.2 gigabits per second (Gbps). IEEE 1394 supports both asynchronous and isochronous data transfers, making it suitable for high-bandwidth peripherals including HDDs, high-resolution color printers, scanners, and video conference equipment. At present, the interface is primarily used with external consumer electronics applications. The Serial ATA Solution Serial ATA is expected to eliminate the limitations of the current Parallel ATA interface. Because the Serial ATA architecture changes the physical interface layer only, it maintains register compatibility and software compatibility with Parallel ATA. No device driver changes are necessary and the Serial ATA architecture is transparent to the BIOS and the operating system. Benefits of Serial ATA Serial ATA offers a number of benefits over Parallel ATA, including: • Reductions in voltage and pin count • Smaller, easier-to-route cables; elimination of the cable-length limitation • Improved data robustness • Backward compatibility Voltage Reduction Serial ATA's low-voltage requirement (500 millivolts [mV] peak-to-peak) will effectively alleviate the increasingly difficult-to-accommodate 5-volt signaling requirement that hampers the current Parallel ATA interface. Cabling The Serial ATA architecture replaces the wide Parallel ATA ribbon cable with a thin, flexible cable that can be up to 1 meter in length. The serial cable is smaller and easier to route inside the chassis (see Figure 2). The small-diameter cable can help improve air flow inside the PC system chassis and will facilitate future designs of smaller PC systems. The lower pin count of the smaller Serial ATA connector will eliminate the need for the large and cumbersome 40-pin connectors required by Parallel ATA. Improved Data Robustness Serial ATA will offer more thorough error checking and error correcting capabilities than are currently available with Parallel ATA. The end-to-end integrity of transferred commands and data can be guaranteed across the serial bus. Backward Compatibility Serial ATA will provide backward compatibility for legacy Parallel ATA and ATAPI devices. This can be accomplished by two methods: • Using chip sets that support Parallel ATA devices in conjunction with discrete components that support Serial ATA devices. Dell expects these discrete components to be available in 2001. Dell is requesting that an integrated chip set, which supports a mix of serial and parallel channels, be available in 2002. • Using serial and parallel dongles, which adapt parallel devices to a serial controller or adapt serial devices to a parallel controller. Serial ATA Road Map Serial ATA is planned as the foundation of a new storage interface replacement architecture that is as cost-effective as Parallel ATA and has greater performance improvement potential. Serial ATA releases will generally follow this road map (dates are approximate): • First-generation Serial ATA — expected to ship in 2002. The first release of the interface will support data transfer rates of up to 150 MB/sec. • Second-generation Serial ATA — When second generation Serial ATA becomes available, it will support data transfer rates of up to 300 MB/sec. • Third-generation Serial ATA — When third generation Serial ATA becomes available, it will support data transfer rates of up to 600 MB/sec.

2002/07/09 What is a Smart Card? Technology continues to change day by day. The most obvious of changes has come in the size of what we call computers. This is evident in the coming of age of smart cards. What is a smart card? Well, it may appear to be a standard credit card. From the outside there is a definite resemblance. However, smarts cards are much more closely related to your personal computer than your regular VISA card. Embedded in the plastic of a smart card are electronics capable of memory and processing. Identical in size and feel to credit cards, smart cards store information on an integrated microprocessor chip located within the body of the card. These chips hold a variety of information, from stored (monetary)-value used for retail and vending machines, to secure information and applications for higher-end operations such as medical/healthcare records. New information and/or applications can be added depending on the chip capabilities. Different types of cards being used today are contact, contactless and combination cards. Contact smart cards must be inserted into a smart card reader. These cards have a contact plate on the face which makes an electrical connector for reads and writes to and from the chip when inserted into the reader. Contactless smart cards have an antenna coil, as well as a chip embedded within the card. The internal antenna allows for communication and power with a receiving antenna at the transaction point to transfer information. Close proximity is required for such transactions, which can decrease transaction time while increasing convenience. A combination card functions as both a contact and contactless smart card. You can think of the smart card as a "credit card" with a "brain" on it, the brain being a small embedded computer chip. This card-computer can be programmed to perform tasks and store information, but note that the brain is little -- meaning that the smart card's power falls far short of your desktop computer. Smart cards currently are used in telephone, transportation, banking, and healthcare transactions, and soon we'll begin to see them used in Internet applications. Smart cards are already being used extensively in Japan and Europe and are gaining popularity in the U.S. How many smart cards have been issued worldwide, and what is the projected growth? In 1996, approximately 805 million smart cards were issued, with an estimated 2.8 billion to be distributed in 2000. The distribution is: **   Card Application 1996* 2000* Average Annual Growth Pay Phone 605 1,500 29% GSM 20 45 25% Health Care 70 120 14% Banking 40 250 105% Identity/Access 20 300 280% Transportation  15 200 247% Pay TV 15 75 80% Gaming 5 200 780% Metering/Vending 10 80 140% Retail/Loyalty 5 75 280% *in millions ** data source: http://www.scia.org

2002/06/24 DataPlay, A New Portable Storage Technology In the recording industry, the CD is still king, even with the popularity of downloadable MP3s on the Internet. But a Colorado company called DataPlay Inc. has come up with a new disc that it hopes will make the CD as relevant in the distant future as an eight- track tape is now. DataPlay's disc is about the size of a 50-cent piece, yet it can hold the equivalent of five standard CDs, or 11 hours of digital MP3 music. The disc, which the company started shipping last year, offers an artist's latest album and a selection of previously released songs or a music video. Users can also load their own selection of CD-quality songs onto the disc. DataPlay based in Boulder, Colo., generated buzz in technology circles when it showed off its new disc and recordable disk drive during the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last January 2001. Its optical technology crams as much as 500M bytes of data onto a disk about the size of a postage stamp-enough space to store several albums worth of music. DataPlay's disc offers 250MB, 500 MB and up to 1GB of storage for about $10 each, but it can record music or data only once. Unlike Redwood City's controversial Napster Inc., which the record industry treats as public enemy No. 1, DataPlay has attracted the attention of the recording industry and already has three of the top five biggest record labels on its side like the recording subsidiary of German media giant Bertelsmann AG that has released new albums on DataPlay discs as early as last year. DataPlay already has signed agreements with Universal and EMI, and boasts of the Universal Media Group among its investors. DataPlay also has a big edge with its deals with the record companies, which can supply the music content needed to get fans and consumer electronics makers even to consider trying the new technology. BMG Entertainment, for example, is home to about 200 labels, including RCA Music Group, Arista Records and Ariola. Its parent company has also cut a deal to help Napster Inc. develop a new legal form of its popular online song- swapping service, which would be used to promote CD sales. While allowing consumers to store data on the disks themselves, DataPlay's storage format will allow recording companies to preload their music on the disks, which DataPlay hopes will pave the way for some compelling applications. DataPlay first hopes to tap the developing market for consumer portable MP3 and digital audio players. This technology hopes to bring music, electronic books and other forms of entertainment into other portable digital devices such as cellular phones, cameras and personal digital assistants. Consumers could get the latest album on the disc, and then purchase the band's four previous albums, already recorded on the disc, by buying the digital code that unlocks those releases. The disks include built-in copy protection using the Secure Digital Music Initiative. The disc is expected to cost about the same as a standard CD, and the additional songs might cost less. Koutech Systems, Inc. has come out with a DataPlay USB Player/Recorder, the KW-8000DU, to complement this new storage technology. With a built-in DataPlay Micro-Optical engine, the KW-8000DU supports DataPlay media of 250MB, 500MB and up to 1GB while allowing a theoretical data transfer rate of up to 1MB/s. Because of its USB 1.1 compliance, the Player/Reader is fully Hot-Swappable (Plug-N-Play) and holds up under Windows 98SE/ME/2000/XP. Call our Sales Department at (562)699-5340 or send us an email at sales@koutech.com to find out more.

2001/05/07 Kouwell Electronics Corporation to ship USB 2.0 PCI Host Controller in quantity Santa Fe Springs, CA – Koutech Systems, Inc. announced today that it is shipping KW-2580N, a 5-Port USB 2.0 PCI Host Controller, for quantity orders in the US market. Koutech Systems, Inc. has been shipping this KW-2580N since the beginning of April for sample and evaluation purposes only. After the April USB Compliance Workshop in South San Francisco; Koutech Systems, Inc. feels confident that their product has been proven, and it is ready for the mass US market. USB 2.0, or Enhanced Host Controller Interface (EHCI) has a total bandwidth of 480 Mbits/sec, which can deliver 40 times faster speed than the older USB 1.1 specification, or Open Host Controller Interface (OHCI, 12 Mbits/sec and 1.5Mbits/sec). KW-2580N, is both PC and Mac compatible. It supports OHCI under Windows 98/98SE/ME/2000 at this writing; for EHCI supports, it will be available as soon as MicrosoftÒ officially release their drivers. KW-2580N also supports OHCI in Macintosh with Mac OS 8.6 and above. KW-2580N is a 5-Port PCI host controller, which comes with 6 connectors, 5 external and 1 internal connectors; one of the external is sharing the same port with the internal connector. KW-2580N is using NEC’s USB 2.0 host controller, which was the first to receive USB certification last November. The NEC’s host controller chip provides 5 ports in a three (3) independent host controller design (two OHCI & one EHCI). With this specification, all 5 ports support both the OHCI and EHCI. Users may connect any USB 2.0 and 1.1 devices to any of these 5 ports, and enjoy the full bandwidth of USB 2.0 and USB 1.1. In addition to the USB 2.0 PCI Host Controller, Koutech Systems, Inc. will be coming out with a series of USB 2.0 enable products; such as, external hubs, card readers, ethernet adapter cables, etc. later this year. The KW-2580N USB 2.0 PCI Host Controller has a list price of US$89.99. If you have any further questions about the KW-2580N, you may contact Koutech Systems, Inc.’s Sales Department at sales@koutech.com or call (562) 699-5340 directly. Koutech Systems, Inc., a subsidiary of Kouwell Electronics Corporation, is a leading manufacturer of I/O cards for over 10 years. Koutech Systems, Inc. specializes in USB, FireWire / IEEE 1394, RS-232, IEEE 1284, SCSI, and others I/O products. They provide the PC and IPC industry a complete solution to I/O cards need. Koutech Systems, Inc. is located at 9314 Norwalk Blvd., Santa Fe Springs, CA 90670, USA, (562) 699-5340, www.koutech.com. Microsoft and Windows are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. Apple, Mac, Macintosh and FireWire are trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc. NEC is a registered trademark of NEC Corporation. All other registered trademarks or trademarks are property of their respective owners.