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Granite Microsystems Partners With Harris Semiconductor To Develop Device Bay PCs For The Medical And Industrial Market

— DB-4000 Device Bay Remote Condos will allow industrial users to easily add/remove peripherals without experiencing downtime

MELBOURNE, FL, November 16, 1998 – Granite Microsystems, a leading provider of OEM embedded computers and factory-floor PCs, today announced that it has partnered with Harris Semiconductor to develop PCs for the medical and industrial marketplace based on the Device Bay Specification. Granite’s line of Device Bay products utilize Harris’ complete solution to meet the unique power management requirements of Device Bay, an industry consortium aimed at providing PC users the convenience of a central port system in which peripherals can be easily connected.

Granite’s medical and industrial users will be able to connect and disconnect peripherals via Device Bay without any downtime that results from rebooting or putting entire systems to sleep just to add a peripheral. In this market, downtime is a costly aspect of manufacturing, especially if the entire enterprise or supply chain is linked.

"Our customers have been demanding this technology and we turned to Harris to meet the unique power requirements of Device Bay," said Kent Tabor, President of Granite Systems. "The importance of this offering is unparalleled. Users will now be able to facilitate peripheral connections without the side effects of down time — a monumental feature for medical manufacturers and industrial OEM’s and users."

Device Bay Specifications will significantly improve the way that PC customers install, upgrade and use PCs and PC devices because of the ease of a central port system. Harris’ new family of Device Bay Controllers provides a complete power system architecture that satisfies the power management requirements of Device Bay products. Harris’ CDP1020 is an ACPI compliant Device Bay Controller that can control two device bays. The controller interfaces to the host system and provides direct gate drive for external N-Channel MOSFETs to switch power supply in the bay.

Harris’ Device Bay portfolio also includes the HIP1020 controller, which contains all of the necessary circuitry for hot plug power control into a small SOT23 package. The HIP1020 is ideal for any low-cost hot plug application and is fully compatible with the Device Bay specification.

"We are pleased to see the Harris’ solution utilized in a product aimed at the industrial market," said Mike Coletta, Product Marketing Manager of Harris Power Products Business. "Granite Microsystems is truly an early adopter of the Device Bay specification and we look forward to watching how it will allow for unrealized efficiency increases. We applaud the efforts of the Device Bay consortium and are proud to provide the most highly-integrated power solution for both PC and peripheral manufacturers."

In addition to the benefits of adding or removing peripherals, Device Bay allows a computer with a failed drive to be functional in minutes instead of hours. Systems that previously required a CD-ROM drive for software installation now only require an empty Device Bay slot. When the drive is needed, it can be quickly inserted, used, and removed again. The reduced cost for service and upgrade of PCs will significantly decrease the total cost of ownership and improve the ownership experience for all customers.

Device Bay, which is receiving broad industry acceptance, defines an industry specification for interchangeable peripheral devices, such as hard disk drives, modems, network adapters, CD drives, DVD drives and a variety of other electronics devices. The Device Bay technology is expected to be supported in future Intel chipsets and related products, future versions of Microsoft Windows and Windows NT, and future Compaq commercial and consumer products.

About Granite Microsystems
Granite Microsystems offers customized PC-based solutions to the OEM markets, such as PC-based medical equipment, industrial machine control and automated test equipment. With state-of-the-art engineering, software design and manufacturing capabilities, Granite provides its customers with a wide array of computer-related products and services.

Granite manufactures computers, electronic devices, subassemblies and enclosures. Granite has particular expertise in high level design and integration for OEM embedded computers and industrial PC’s and controls. Granite’s design expertise includes work in high speed serial bus peripherals (USB, 1394), ISA and PCI bus expansion cards, Device Bay Products and custom I/O solutions.

Granite’s worldwide Web site is: http://www.granitemicrosystems.com

About Harris Semiconductor
Harris Corporation's Semiconductor sector manufactures discrete semiconductors and integrated circuits. Product development efforts are focused on innovative "next level solutions" for the communications and power markets. The company’s broad portfolio of products serve many market segments – automotive, industrial, PC computing, wireless networking, tele-communications, signal processing, PC multimedia, consumer electronics, defense and space.

The worldwide website is: http://www.semi.harris.com.

Harris Corporation, with worldwide sales of more than $3.9 billion, is an international communications and electronic company that provides a wide range of products and services such as wireless and personal communications, digital television (HDTV), health care information, automotive electronics, transportation, business information, defense communications and information, and Lanier office products. The worldwide Web site is: http://www.harris.com.