the 2009 Annual Report (pdf) - PLX Technology

• We supply a hardware Rapid Development Kit (RDK) as part of our standard offering. This allows
customers to evaluate our products easily, and enables software development and interoperability testing to
begin prior to the customer developing their own hardware.
• PLX provides simulation models to customers that allow them to develop their own devices and verify that
they interoperate with our products prior to getting silicon.
• We provide a complete Software Development Kit (SDK) that provides kernel-level drivers, a user-level
application programming interface (API), sample code for some of the advanced features, and a state-of-theart
graphical user interface (GUI) that allows customers to easily bring up their system. Support is provided
for industry-leading operating systems.
• In addition to these visible features, our products also include in-chip capabilities that allow rapid debug of
complex system problems in order to improve time-to-market. This allows high speed signals to be
effectively debugged in the field without adding special instrumentation.
• We offer worldwide technical support, with local, direct Field Applications Engineers (FAEs) in North
America, Europe, and throughout Asia.
The company has also enhanced its overall growth through acquisitions that provide synergy with our overall
added-value strategy.
On December 15, 2008, we signed a definitive agreement to acquire all of the outstanding shares of capital stock
of Oxford, a privately held fabless provider of industry-leading silicon and software for the SOHO storage markets.
The acquisition closed on January 2, 2009.
Established in 1992, Oxford has been providing reliable, high-performance silicon and software solutions to
interconnect digital systems, including PCIe, USB, 1394, Ethernet, Serial ATA and external Serial ATA. Oxford’s
corporate headquarters were located in Milpitas, California, with most of its employees based in Oxford’s design
center in Abingdon, United Kingdom. The rapidly growing consumer and SOHO external storage markets account
for the majority of Oxford’s sales. Oxford provides advanced system-on-chip solutions for both direct-attached
storage (DAS) and network-attached storage (NAS) external drives. Oxford has a reputation for providing innovative
and reliable chip, software and firmware solutions for consumer storage needs and counts leading manufacturers and
marketers as customers, including Seagate, Western Digital, LaCie, Hewlett Packard, and Macpower.
We believe that through this acquisition, we have a leadership position in two of the fastest-growing interconnect
chip markets – PCI Express-based systems and consumer external storage. Major synergies include common
interconnect technologies and design flows, sales, marketing and support systems, and supply chains. Most
importantly, we can create innovative products that combine the considerable intellectual property and industry
knowledge of Oxford and PLX. The two companies share a customer-focused business philosophy that includes
delivering the highest quality products and services, and a culture that rewards innovation and results.
We continue to evaluate our business strategies and may complete additional acquisitions in future periods.
Technology
PLX focuses on providing differentiated products to leadership customers. In order to achieve this, we have
developed unique core competencies in the underlying technologies necessary for success.
Semiconductor Design. Our engineers have substantial expertise in designing complex, reliable, high performance
products. We utilize state-of-the-art EDA tools and techniques for the entire design pipeline, and have developed
proprietary verification mechanisms to ensure robust operation prior to committing to silicon. It is relatively
straightforward to get a device to operate in normal, error free environments. It is much more challenging to have
that device operative predictably and reliably in environments where errors occur in the system, and where
unexpected or complex combinations of transactions occur. PLX has built up an industry-leading suite of tests that
ensure such reliable operation in real-world customer systems.
In addition to software-based simulation techniques, we have also invested in a flexible hardware-based emulation
platform that enables our designers to run real software on a version of our design prior to committing to silicon.
This allows our products to operate in more complex system-level environments, where subtle and undocumented
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