Next Ultra SCSI Meeting

[jmcgrath at qntm.com]

        Reply to:   Next Ultra SCSI Meeting

A reminder that the next Ultra SCSI meeting is to be held on
Thursday, March 31, 9:30 am to 3 or 4 pm.  The location is the
Crown Sterling Suites hotel in Milpitas, CA.

In order to continue moving rapidly, it is essential that companies
come prepared with positions on the proposed timing specifications.
Complete documentation from the March 2 meeting was distributed
at the SCSI meeting.  Specifically, Larry Lamers of Adaptec has a
draft Ultra SCSI proposal, and Bill Ham of DEC had all the information
he presented at the March 2 meeting.

The general feedback we appear to be getting is very strong support
for ultra SCSI.  It provides a performance growth path for parallel
SCSI, potentially allowing people to delay making choices about serial
interface alternatives for at least another year.  Given the immature
and fragmented serial market, a lot of people seem to appreciate
this delay.

One specific issue raised by HP was whether chips with multiple
differential drivers would work in practice, most of the concern
relating to high temperature (current experience is negative).
I anticipate a lot of questions involving whether silicon vendors
can meet timing specifications over temperature, voltage ranges,
manufacturing process variance, etc...  The pace of Ultra SCSI
development depends on how quickly silicon vendors can turn
around answers on these questions.  If our pace of progress is
too slow, I fully anticipate the market will overtake the standards
process, creating a potential mess.