Fast-20 Project Proposal Results

[John Lohmeyer]

This is the result of the Fast-20 Project Proposal letter ballot.  The ballot
passed with no negatives.  At its meeting last week, X3T10 accepted some of
the comments accompanying Gene Milligan's YES ballot.  The Quantum ballot
asked for no changes, the Unitrode ballot was actually a comment on
the Fast-20 proposal (and was accepted), and the Western Digital comment
was not accepted (the clause Jeff objected to is in all our other project
proposals and has not been abused).  I will distribute the revised
project proposal in the next X3T10 mailing and send it on to X3 for
further processing.

John

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Fast-20 Letter Ballot Results: 51:0:0:8 = 59

Yes, with comment: Quantum, Milligan (Seagate), Unitrode, Western Digital

Did not respond: AMD, Apple, Compaq, Future Domain, Harbor Electronics, 
Maxtor, P.E. Logic, Samsung

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Quantum comment: 

On Fast-20, Quantum votes to IN FAVOR and strongly endorses developments in 
this area.

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Milligan (Seagate) comment:

Comments Accompanying SCSI-4 Fast 20 PI Yes Ballot

The following changes should be made to the project proposal:

1) The title should be reordered to fit the normal layered standards
descriptions. Move "SCSI-3" to the start of the title.

2) I think we should cut the cord on SCSI-3 activity this year. Consequently I
suggest making the project the first SCSI-4 project. (The lack of Command set
editorial help may make it difficult to cut the cord this year.)

3) The statement in 2.3 does not seem to have any relationship to the item. I
suggest replacing it with the usual inane statement "The proposed project
involves evolutionary expansion of the SCSI-3 SPI standard."

4) 3.7 is currently a misstatement of fact. Delete "for two days".

5) Based upon the frequency of revising the interface standard it seems
incredulous to claim in 3.9 a life of over ten years. I suggest over three
years.

6) In 4.4 I think there are known legal considerations. AMD had claimed a
patent that relates to SPI. Western Digital noted that there is a patent which
relates to the transceivers, slew rate control, and ESD protection.

7) In Section 5.1 and 5.5 SCSI-2 should be listed and in 5.2 and 5.5 SCSI-3. In
5.4 and 5.6 the transceiver and connector standards should be mentioned.

8) Regarding the Scope of the project I doubt that the cabled environment will
be sufficiently controlled to result in a reliable standard. Consequently the
scope should be limited to backplane SCA applications. I debated whether this
should yield a "No" vote and concluded that even if the scope of the project is
not limited, as it should be, that this point can be further addressed by
requiring sufficient testing to demonstrate that the cabled environments can be
widely accommodated.

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Unitrode comment: "Remove last line 2.0 -- Contradicts 2.1.1"

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Western Digital comment:

While we vote "yes" for the project proposal, we strenuously object to the 
following item in the project proposal:

* In clause 2.2, item "c)", the phrase following the comma "," reading:

       "...and other capabilities that may be proposed during the development
       phase by the participants in the project."

should be deleted.  This phrase leaves the proposal too wide open.  This is
not a connector project, but this phrase allows for such a thing.  A connector
project, if called for, should rightly be a separate effort.  For those 
concerned that the project be flexible enough to allow development of the
20 megatransfer standard, the first part of item "c)" should be sufficient
(and I propose that this be the full text for item "c)"):

     "c) Other capabilities which fit within the general scope of implementing
     20 megatransfer per second synchronous data transfers on a broad range of
     applications."

This seems quite sufficient for any purpose for the development of the 
standard, including the definition of any connector or cable specifications
specifically required to achieve the higher transfer rate.

I trust that the committee will make the appropriate adjustment to the 
proposal.  Thank you for your attention.


-- 
John Lohmeyer                      E-Mail:  John.Lohmeyer at FtCollinsCO.NCR.COM
NCR Microelectronics                Voice:  719-573-3362
1635 Aeroplaza Dr.                    Fax:  719-597-8225
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