QLogic SANbox2 Switch Outperforms Competition

Spirent Communications' Industry-Leading SAN Performance Analysis Solutions Clock QLogic as Best Performing 2Gb Fibre Channel Switch

ALISO VIEJO, Calif., August 26, 2002 -QLogic Corp. (Nasdaq:QLGC), the company that powers storage area networks (SANs), today announced that its SANbox2* 16 Port Fibre Channel switch outperformed all competitive offerings in tests performed by QLogic and conducted with Spirent Communications' SmartBits 6000B and SmartFabric testing tools, the industry-first product for evaluating network switch performance.

Using the SmartBits 6000B with FBC-3602A test modules and the SmartFabric application, the SANbox2 16 port switch achieved the maximum wire-rate throughput of 2GBits/sec Fibre Channel simultaneously for all ports (aggregate of 3,362 Mbytes/sec). In addition, the QLogic SANbox2 performed with up to 96 percent less latency (the amount of delay added by a device) compared to all competitive switch products. The SANbox2 demonstrated minimal and predictable latency under peak traffic conditions, which is a key performance requirement for most storage applications such as OLTP (On-Line Transaction Processing), database transactions and video streaming/authoring.

"The SmartBits performance analysis products from Spirent were an obvious choice to test our SANbox2 switch in a variety of traffic load scenarios," said Mike Knudsen, senior vice president, QLogic Network Storage Group. "SAN designers and administrators require consistent and predictable switching performance for nominal and peak traffic cases. This testing confirms that the SANbox2 switching architecture provides industry-leading performance at the lowest cost in the market."

Testing Details
In measuring throughput, all 16 ports of the SANbox2 were tested simultaneously in pairs and mesh traffic patterns using the SmartBits 6000B, FBC-3602A test modules, and SmartFabric application from Spirent. The theoretical maximum throughput was calculated by the Spirent tools for all frame sizes allowable by the Fibre Channel standard (60 - 2148 bytes), resulting in the switch aggregate of 3,362 Mbytes/sec for maximum size frames. A maximum latency of 0.5 microseconds was achieved across the full range of traffic load scenarios: 20 percent to 100 percent of the maximum traffic burst rate for 2GBit Fibre Channel. By comparison, under identical conditions the latency of other products reached 15 microseconds or more, which is equivalent to 30 times the worst case for SANbox2.

Powered by QLogic
QLogic technology powers SAN solutions from the world's leading storage vendors including Cisco, Dell, EMC, Fujitsu, Hitachi, HP, IBM, Quantum, Sony, StorageTek and Sun. The industry depends on QLogic to simplify SANs with native Fibre Channel support designed into all major operating systems and to innovate new ways to network storage through new technologies like Virtual Interface (VI), Fibre Down(tm) and iSCSI.

About QLogic (www.qlogic.com <http://www.qlogic.com>)
QLogic Corporation (Nasdaq:QLGC <http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=qlgc&d=t>) simplifies the process of networking storage for OEMs, resellers and system integrators with the only end-to-end infrastructure in the industry, consisting of award-winning controller chips, host bus adapters, network switches and management software to move data from the storage device through the fabric to the server. QLogic designs and produces solutions based on all storage network technologies including SCSI, iSCSI, InfiniBand and Fibre Channel. A member of the S&P 500 Index, QLogic was recently ranked number 25 on Forbes' Best 200 Small Companies and number 20 on Fortune's 100 Fastest Growing Companies.

Note: All QLogic-issued press releases appear on the company's web site (www.qlogic.com). Any announcement that does not appear on the QLogic web site has not been issued by QLogic.

Disclaimer- Forward Looking Statements

With the exception of historical information, the statements set forth above include forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. The Company wishes to advise readers that a number of important factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Those factors include new and changing technologies and customer acceptance of those technologies; a change in semiconductor foundry capacity or conditions; fluctuations in the growth of I/O markets; fluctuations or cancellations in orders from OEM customers; the Company's ability to compete effectively with other companies; cancellation of OEM products associated with design wins; and reductions in the need for space and increased costs of operations due to facility relocation. Carrying additional expansion space may increase costs and adversely impact future earnings.

These and other factors which could cause actual results to differ materially are also discussed in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its recent filings on Form S-3, Form 10-K, and Form 10-Q.

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