PT Debuts Monterey 8000, a Groundbreaking MicroTCA.4 Application-Ready Platform

ROCHESTER, N.Y., Oct. 19, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- PT (NASDAQ: PTIX), a leading global supplier of advanced network communications, today announced Monterey 8000™ the flagship offering of Monterey MicroTCA Platforms, the company's newest family of products. PT previewed the product in June of this year by announcing the development of its platform designed in accordance with the newly ratified PICMG MicroTCA.4 specification. Monterey 8000 is the first fully integrated MTCA.4, application-ready platform to enter the market and is specifically tuned for high-performance Next-Generation network applications. PT is scheduled to ship the first Monterey 8000 in fourth quarter 2011, and is demonstrating a live platform at the ATCA Summit in San Jose, CA in two weeks.

Today's Next-Generation network architectures demand greater processing capability, more memory, and high-speed IP, yet they are faced with challenges of limited space and competitive price points. In the open-standards ecosystem, ATCA offers extreme computing power to satisfy Network Core demands, however its larger footprint inhibits flexibility. On the other hand, the original MicroTCA base design is the ideal size for Edge-based applications, but does not offer upward scalability. The Aggregation Layer, located in the space between the Core and the Edge, is left wanting for a cost-effective standards-based solution with plenty of compute performance, flexible I/O, and high-speed bandwidth. Monterey 8000, with its mid-sized, modular footprint, fills that critical void with a flexible platform specifically suited for Next Generation applications.

"PT is exploring new horizons with the creation of Monterey, a line that encompasses our wide array of MicroTCA technology;" said John Slusser, President and CEO of PT. "We leverage our thirty year history and strong base of expertise in computing systems design to introduce a platform that fills a gap in the open-standards ecosystem - a platform that sets a higher standard upon which to measure all future performance." Slusser added, "PT was a key supporter and strong advocate for the recently announced MicroTCA.4 specification, originally conceived to address stringent requirements in the physics community. Yet PT's clarity of vision and focus on designing to future needs propelled us to take additional, unprecedented leaps in power and capacity development that led to the innovative Monterey 8000 platform. It is light years ahead of any other MicroTCA platform available today, and is architected to support the demands of a decade from now."

PT designed the Monterey 8000 platform to be fully compatible with MicroTCA.4; it offers carrier-grade five-nines availability, up to twelve AMC slots with rear transition modules (RTMs), plus dual/redundant MicroTCA carrier hubs (MCHs) with RTMs. The PT development team further enhanced the architecture with the addition of two key super-set capabilities vital for a long product life cycle:

• 40GbE - Seamless 40Gb Ethernet extension to each AMC slot supports future data bandwidth demands,
• 160 Watts per slot - Exclusive extended power design doubles the power budget for each AMC slot to 160 watts, anticipating the demands of future high-speed multi-core and special purpose processors

During the development of the MicroTCA.4 spec, it became clear the requirements are applicable to a wider range of markets outside the scientific community. In particular, the benefits of Monterey 8000 are relevant to NGN application developers in five major markets:

• Telecom equipment manufacturers
• Wireless equipment manufacturers
• Military/aerospace primes
• Commercial systems providers  
• Industrial systems providers

When ATCA was introduced in 2002, it was the only practical open-standards platform available to implement high-density devices. The intervening decade of technology brought exponential iterations of Moore's Law, changing the ecosystem landscape dramatically with evolutions such as multi-core, hyper-threaded general-purpose processors, and multi-core packet processors. Levels of high compute-density processing that were once only possible in an ATCA environment are easily performed today on the small but powerful Monterey 8000, and it is designed to support the forecasted explosion of network traffic over the next dozen years.

See a live demonstration of Monterey 8000 in PT's booth #406 at the ATCA Summit in San Jose, November 1st and 2nd.

Online Resources
http://pt.com/page/monterey

About PT (www.pt.com)
PT (NASDAQ: PTIX) is a global supplier of advanced network communications solutions to service provider, government, and OEM markets. PT's portfolio includes IP-centric network elements and applications designed for high availability, scalability, and long life cycle deployments. The industry-leading Monterey MicroTCA and IPnexus platforms anchor the company's broad range of offerings on PT's own IP-native, highly integrated platforms and element management systems. OEMs and application developers, including PT itself, leverage the robust carrier grade Linux development environment and rich suite of communications protocols (PT's NexusWare) of IPnexus Application-Ready Systems as a cornerstone component of their end product value proposition. PT's SEGway Signaling Solutions provide affordable, high density signaling, advanced routing for LTE and IMS applications, IP migration, gateway capabilities, SIP bridging, and core-to-edge distributed intelligence, as well as features such as Number Portability and SMS Spam Defense. The company's Xpress NGN applications enable evolving Mobile 2.0, Multi-media, and IMS based revenue-generating services. PT is headquartered in Rochester, NY and maintains sales and engineering offices around the world.

Forward Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements, which are subject to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act and should be read in conjunction with the Company's documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

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SOURCE Performance Technologies, Inc.