LSI Corporation (NASDAQ: LSI) today reported results for its fourth quarter ended December 31, 2013. On December 15, 2013, LSI entered into a definitive agreement with Avago Technologies Limited (NASDAQ: AVGO) under which Avago has agreed to acquire LSI for $11.15 per share in an all-cash transaction valued at approximately $6.6 billion. In anticipation of this transaction, which is expected to close in the first half of 2014, LSI will not issue financial guidance for the upcoming quarter or conduct a fourth quarter results conference call. LSI has also discontinued its quarterly dividend and stock repurchases.

"We ended the year on a strong note, with solid quarterly results and the announcement of Avago's proposed acquisition of LSI," said Abhi Talwalkar, LSI's president and CEO. "Our employees did a great job in the quarter and in the year, bringing several exciting new products to market and expanding our capabilities to better serve our growing customer base in flash storage, datacenters and mobile networks."

In addition to the HyperX Fury series, Kingston showed off one of the first client SSDs in the 2.5-inch SATA form-factor that's based on the new SandForce 3700 controller platform by LSI. The drive is unnamed as of now, but will feature in the company's SSDNow family of client SSDs. The controller features pins for both SATA 6 Gb/s and PCI-Express 2.0 x4. On drives built in the PCIe add-on card form-factor, the controller offers sequential transfer rates as high as 1,800 MB/s. SATA 6 Gb/s should certainly bottleneck it, but it could also be one of the fastest drives in its form-factor. The dual interface makes the controller ready for the SATA-Express form-factor, with backwards compatibility for SATA 6 Gb/s; as well as NGFF. Kingston didn't reveal launch details.

Mushkin Enhanced Mfg., an industry-leading designer and manufacturer of high-performance and mission-critical computer products, announces the next entry to the Ventura Ultra series -- the world's fastest USB flash drive lineup. In continuation of the current line of 60 GB, 120 GB, and 240 GB models, Mushkin is unveiling the Ventura Ultra 480 GB USB 3.0 SSD at CES 2014.

The latest Ventura Ultra offering retains the ultra-high performance of the lower capacity models while now offering 480GB of storage. The LSI SandForce SF-2281 powered USB SSDs provide best in class throughput of 455MB/s reads and 445MB/s writes while providing up to 39K 4K random IOPS. The Ventura Ultra also is capable of operating in UASP mode, which enables SSD performance in the USB flash drive form factor. With its attractive and light-weight aluminum housing, the Ventura Ultra provides outstanding durability and thermal management.

Kingston Technology Company Inc., the independent world leader in memory products, today announced it will hold the live finals for its Dota 2 and overclocking global contest during the 2014 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Nev. In addition, Kingston will showcase exciting new products and technologies coming this year.

Dota 2 is a competitive game of action and strategy, played both professionally and casually by millions of passionate fans worldwide. The HyperX Dota 2 League tournament began online last October with 16 professional gaming teams from around the world. The four finalists are: Alliance from Sweden, LGD Gaming, Vici Gaming from China, and Fnatic from Europe. The four teams will battle live for $50,000 (USD) in prize money.

Dear God, all I need is an all rounder server motherboard that offers 16x 12G SAS-3 connectors while taking up less space and using less power, a Mezzanine slot for upgrading to 10GLAN plus ECC memory for stability, is that too much to ask for? Not really, because your wish is ASRock Rack's command! ASRock Rack's E3C224D4M-16RE is the world's first 12G SAS-3 server motherboard specifically built to fit our enterprise customers' needs.

ASRock Rack's E3C224D4-16RE adopts LSI SAS 3008 controller + 3X24R expander to support 16 SAS-3 (12Gb/s) ports directly onboard with 4 SAS HD connectors. A whopping total of 22 connectors, including 16 SAS-3 connectors provided by LSI SAS 3008 controller + 3X24R expander and 6 SATA ports, which can offer more than enough storage options! ASRock Rack is a pioneer in introducing the SAS-3 12Gb/s standard to the server marketplace.

Avago Technologies Limited and LSI Corporation today announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Avago will acquire LSI for $11.15 per share in an all-cash transaction valued at $6.6 billion. The acquisition creates a highly diversified semiconductor market leader with approximately $5 billion in annual revenues by adding enterprise storage to Avago's existing wired infrastructure, wireless and industrial businesses. The combined company will be strongly positioned to capitalize on the growing opportunities created by the rapid increases in data center IP and mobile data traffic.

"This highly complementary and compelling acquisition positions Avago as a leader in the enterprise storage market and expands our offerings and capabilities in wired infrastructure, particularly system-level expertise," stated Hock Tan, President and Chief Executive Officer of Avago. "This combination will increase the Company's scale and diversify our revenue and customer base. In addition to these powerful strategic benefits, as we integrate LSI onto the Avago platform, we expect to drive LSI's operating margins toward Avago's current levels, creating significant additional value for stockholders."

Organizations can now achieve a higher level of storage performance with Intel RAID RS3 controllers, powered by LSI Technology. They are specifically designed to meet the demands of I/O-intensive applications, cloud datacenters and virtualized server environments.

Businesses that use Intel RAID RS3 controllers as the basis for their storage infrastructure can achieve more than 1 million IOPs in JBOD mode. With 12 Gb/s SAS-3 technology, it can accelerate business-critical applications in enterprise, Web and cloud datacenters.

Organizations with a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) can now get a significant performance boost with the Intel SSD Cache Controller RCS25ZB040. Powered by LSI Nytro Technology, the Intel RCS25ZB040 is designed to expedite data across a VDI while decreasing the cost per desktop.

The Intel RCS25ZB040 accelerates VDI performance with intelligent caching technology, which monitors frequently accessed data and retains it on its enterprise-grade flash for faster access. Plus, it moves data faster across a VDI and reduces the cost per desktop within the infrastructure.

Kingston Digital, Inc., the Flash memory affiliate of Kingston Technology Company, Inc., the independent world leader in memory products, today announced it will exhibit at the LSI Accelerating Innovation Summit (AIS) 2013. A gold sponsor, Kingston will showcase its robust range of enterprise- and client-based SSDs. Kingston will exhibit in Booth 14 during the show, November 20 and 21 in San Jose, Calif.

In addition to its current SSD range, Kingston will preview its forthcoming solutions using the LSI SandForce SF3700 flash controller family. In 2014, Kingston's next generation of SSDs will provide even greater performance, reliability and higher capacities. Future SSDNow enterprise SSDs will further enhance datacenters of all sizes and functions from hyper scale to traditional corporate, which will make it easier to bring the power and benefits of Flash memory into the server environment. These future enterprise SSDs will make it possible for exponential numbers of virtual servers and increased computing performance without investing in costly storage systems that take up more physical space and use more power and cooling.

At its annual Accelerating Innovation Summit (AIS), LSI Corporation today introduced its new family of 12 Gb/s SAS MegaRAID controller cards and expanders, built to power leading datacenters worldwide. As the proliferation of applications, data and mobile devices continues to place demands on datacenters, the new family of LSI storage solutions offers innovative technology for increased performance and improved enterprise RAID data protection.

LSI's new storage solutions deliver the application-accelerating performance, enhanced data protection and reduced total cost of ownership (TCO) required for the most demanding datacenters. These benefits were validated by recent industry standard transactional processing benchmark study results that showed LSI 12 Gb/s SAS MegaRAID controller cards delivered a 60 percent increase in database users without performance loss compared with 6 Gb/s SAS solutions. In addition, LSI 12 Gb/s SAS expanders showed throughput increases of 25 percent in conjunction with the popular Hadoop platform, a significant benefit for customers seeking to process big data.

At its annual Accelerating Innovation Summit (AIS), LSI Corporation today announced it has extended the Nytro portfolio of PCIe flash cards to include the Nytro XP6200 series. The Nytro XP6200 series provides hyperscale cloud datacenters with accelerated performance for read-intensive applications, optimized power and thermals, and an overall lower cost per gigabyte PCIe flash solution.

Hyperscale datacenters require cost-effective scaling to thousands of servers to meet the compute and storage demands of Web 2.0, cloud computing and big data analytics applications. Hyperscale infrastructures are often built using lower-cost, highly efficient servers, assembled from off-the-shelf, standard components, and generally require higher-density architectures and more efficient power and cooling.Images courtesy of StorageReview.com

LSI Corporation today unveiled the third generation of its market-leading SandForce flash controller line, the industry's most widely deployed flash management technology for driving PCIe and SATA solid state drive (SSD) and flash card solutions. Designed to support power-sensitive client computing applications as well as I/O-intensive enterprise and hyperscale environments, the new LSI SandForce SF3700 flash controller family provides the increased levels of flash performance, reliability and endurance needed to meet the exacting needs of SSD manufacturers.

The SF3700 family is the industry's first flash controller that provides the flexibility to support both native PCIe Gen2 x4 and SATA 6 Gb/s host interfaces in a single ASIC design. This unique capability greatly simplifies SSD designs and helps to significantly reduce development and manufacturing costs for SSD makers.

Amid the heaps of Z87 chipset motherboards which have already been around for a while, there can only be one that rises from the top with its delicacy and perfection. The long wait has ended, here comes the king of all Intel 8 Series motherboards. All hail ASRock Z87 Extreme11/ac, the most high end Z87 motherboard on the face of earth!

Insane Specs: 22 SATA3 (16 SAS-3 12 Gb/s) / 4-Way Multi-GPU / Thunderbolt 2
Using out of the world to describe ASRock's flagship motherboard Z87 Extreme11/ac is actually an understatement. This motherboard boasts a whopping 22 SATA3 ports, including 6 SATA3 ports by Intel Z87 chipset, and another 16 SAS-3 12.0 Gb/s ports from the added LSI SAS 3008 Controller plus 3X24R Expander, which can reach up to an unearthly 6.1 GB/s transfer speed!

Lenovo today announced, at the EDUCAUSE annual conference here, two new performance-optimized rack servers, the ThinkServer RD540 and ThinkServer RD640. Armed with the latest Intel Xeon E5 processors, these highly efficient and flexible servers are designed for easy integration into existing IT infrastructures that handle demanding virtualization, cloud and compute-intensive workloads.

Lenovo's ThinkServer RD540 and RD640 are an ideal choice for educational institutions seeking affordable options that pack a punch. The RD540 and RD640 provide the performance, security and reliability needed to support large university workloads and operations. When optionally equipped with Stoneware's webNetwork software, school administrators, students and staff can access data, applications and services from a multitude of devices and platforms using just a browser. With low price points, built-in redundancy, high reliability components and sophisticated cooling technology, the RD540 and RD640 deliver outstanding value for higher education.

OCZ Technology Group, Inc., a leading provider of high-performance solid-state drives (SSDs) for computing devices and systems, today announced the latest addition to the popular Deneva 2 Series which now utilizes 19 nanometer (nm) NAND flash. The new models are 2.5-inch, 6 Gbps SATA III-based Multi-Level Cell (MLC) drives that implement the Deneva 2 SSD Series feature-set and are built around a smaller NAND flash process geometry. This cutting-edge drive solution also features a completely new power architecture that was designed from the ground up to optimize server back plane functionality, providing enhanced management of in-rush current and power fluctuation. The result is an advanced SSD series that delivers superior storage performance, enterprise-class endurance, reliability and quality, and excellent total cost of ownership for customers.

"Our Deneva 2 has been a popular SSD series among IT professionals not only as an HDD replacement but to dramatically accelerate I/O access of such popular enterprise applications as OnLine Transaction Processing, database warehousing, read intensive data caching and server boot-ups," said Daryl Lang, SVP of Product Management for OCZ Technology. "By implementing new features and the latest NAND flash process geometry we are able to deliver an optimal balance of I/O performance and cost-efficiency to our customers."

SanDisk Corporation (NASDAQ: SNDK), a global leader in flash memory storage solutions, today announced that is has appointed D. Scott Mercer to its board of directors. Mr. Mercer brings to SanDisk more than 30 years of experience in the technology industry, in both senior executive and board positions. "We are pleased to welcome such a recognized industry executive to SanDisk's board," said Sanjay Mehrotra, president and chief executive officer, SanDisk. "Scott further deepens and strengthens the leadership capabilities of our board, and brings valuable experience in the storage industry."

Mr. Mercer also currently serves as a Director of Polycom, Inc. and QLogic Corporation. Previously, Mr. Mercer was the Chief Executive Officer, Director and Chairman of the Board of Conexant Systems, Inc., interim Chief Executive Officer and Director at Adaptec, Inc., and served as the Chief Financial Officer of Western Digital Corporation. Mr. Mercer also held senior operating and finance roles at Dell, Inc., LSI Corporation and PricewaterhouseCoopers. Mercer has previously held board positions at Palm, Inc., SMART Modular Technologies (WWH), Inc., Alantec Corporation, NetRatings, Inc., and several private companies. He holds a B.S. in Accounting from California Polytechnic University.

In the swarming SSD market, what better way to blast your way from obscurity to worldwide attention, than launching a ludicrously fast SSD? KingSpec unveiled the MC2J677M1T, a PCI-Express SSD that's tested to be capable of sequential speeds as high as 2.5 GB/s (gigabytes per second). Pictured below, the drive is an almost full-height add-on card with PCI-Express 2.0 x8 bus interface. The card seats a high performance SATA 6 Gb/s RAID controller by LSI (under that fan-heatsink), which is wired to eight mSATA 6 Gb/s ports, holding the eight sub-units.

The eight mSATA SSD sub-units on the MC2J677M1T each hold 120 GB of data (totaling 960 GB). Each sub-unit runs a JMicron-made controller, Intel-made MLC NAND flash, and Nanya-made DRAM cache. The LSI RAID controller is designed to be plug-and-play, i.e., the drive is bootable, and you won't need an F6 driver during Windows installation to detect the drive. A quick ATTO benchmark run by TheSSDReview, which has one of these drives, yielded sequential read speeds well past 2,500 MB/s.

ASUS ROG today announced RAIDR Express, the first PCI Express-based SSD in the world with a DuoMode feature that allows it to work with either legacy (traditional) or modern UEFI BIOS. Aimed at hardcore gamers and PC enthusiasts demanding a faster and more reliable computer experience, RAIDR Express combines the best compatibility and great performance with incredible durability.

With 240 GB capacity, sequential 830 MB/s read and 810 MB/s write speeds, and bundled with tons of features that maintain the high-speed performance and extend the lifespan, RAIDR Express is made for real speed-demons. Boasting the gorgeous ROG red and black design with double-sided metal shielding and an incredible 620,000 hours mean time between failure (MTBF) to ensure quality, RAIDR Express is built to last.

Intel launched its newest line of high-performance client SSDs, the SSD 530 series. Built in the 7 mm-thick 2.5-inch, 80 mm M.2, and mSATA form-factors, with SATA 6 Gb/s interface, these drives come in capacities starting from 80 GB. In the 2.5-inch form-factor, the SSD 530 series is available in 80 GB, 120 GB, 180 GB, 240 GB, 360 GB, and 480 GB variants; the 80 mm M.2 and mSATA form-factors it will be sold to OEMs in 80 GB, 120 GB, 180 GB, and 360 GB.

In its product brief, Intel didn't mention performance numbers specific to capacities, but gave out numbers applicable to all capacities - up to 540 MB/s reads, up to 490 MB/s writes, up to 41,000 IOPS 4K random reads, and up to 80,000 IOPS 4K random writes. The series is built around the latest version of SandForce SF-2281 controller with a few LSI refinements. It's based on Intel's 20 nm MLC NAND flash. The SSD 530 series, at least in the 2.5-inch form-factor, are expected to displace SSD 525 and SSD 520 series models from their current price-points.

According to a leaked SSD product stack roadmap by Intel, scored by VR-Zone, the company is close to launching its next-generation performance-segment consumer SSDs, the SSD 530 series. The line succeeds Intel's SSD 520 and SSD 525 series, features the latest 20 nm MLC NAND flash, but the same LSI-SandForce SF-2281 controller (probably the latest revision, backed by a better firmware). According to the roadmap, the series should have debuted back in June, which never happened. Apparently, it's off by a month, and Intel moved its launch window to some time between the 8th and 12th of this month.

Intel's SSD 530 series will be available in three form-factors, including the familiar 2.5-inch SATA (7 mm-thick), NGFF M2, and mSATA. The drives will be available in 80 GB, 180 GB, 240 GB, and 360 GB for the M2 and mSATA form-factors; and 180 GB, 240 GB, 360 GB, and 480 GB for the 2.5-inch form-factor. At this point, nothing is known about their rated performance or pricing. Elsewhere in the lineup, SSD 335 series will continue throughout the year, going into Q1 2014, as Intel's mid-range SSD offering.

LSI Corporation today announced it has expanded the LSI Nytro product portfolio of PCIe flash adapters with a new, high-capacity 3.2TB Nytro WarpDrive accelerator card, and expanded capacity, connectivity and software capabilities across the Nytro MegaRAID product family. The new offerings extend the industry's broadest portfolio of PCIe flash adapter products, allowing customers to choose the optimal solution to uniquely address their challenges across a wide range of enterprise applications and datacenter workloads.

LSI Nytro products are being deployed to deliver the ultra-low latency and high-bandwidth performance required for Big Data applications, hyperscale web and cloud datacenters, financial services, and virtual desktop and server workloads. The products also help customers shrink their overall storage footprint and power requirements, leading to increased datacenter efficiency and lower IT costs.

Chinese flash memory specialist KingFast announced its take on high-capacity compound SSDs with the C-Drive 1 TB. The drive looks like any other 2.5-inch, 9.5 mm-thick SSD, but encloses two subunits striped in an internal RAID 0 configuration, that's abstract to the host, to which it connects over SATA 6 Gb/s. Each of the two 512 GB subunits is driven by an LSI-SandForce SF-2281 controller. KingFast didn't mention if the RAID controller lets the contraption retain support for the TRIM command, but unless they have something substantial like OCZ VCA, we suspect it doesn't. The SATA 6 Gb/s interface clearly bottlenecks the C-Drive, which offers sequential speeds of 559 MB/s reads with 532 MB/s writes, with 5~10% of the interface bandwidth being consumed by the various overheads.It's still the fastest sequential speeds advertised for a SATA 6 Gb/s drive.

ADATA showed off a new high-performance server-grade SSD, the SX2000. Built in the 2.5-inch form-factor, this drive features a PCI-Express 2.0 x4 interface (a cable runs to a PCIe riser card). It is driven by an LSI-SandForce SF-8639 controller, which is a single-chip solution that connects to the host over PCI-Express, and appears to the operating system as ATA AHCI controller, with one drive connected to it. The chip features nearly more than double the ONFI channels as an SF-2281, which reflects on the drive's advertise performance numbers: up to 1,800 MB/s reads with up to 1,800 MB/s writes; up to 200,000 IOPS 4K random reads. The controller supports all modern enterprise SSD features, including TRIM, DEVSLP support, and SMART. It ships in 100 GB, 200 GB, 400 GB, 800 GB, and 1,600 GB variants. The latter was up on display.

ADATA also showed off its SX1000 enterprise SSD, which features a more modest SATA 6 Gb/s interface, an LSI SandForce SF-2500 or SF-2600 series controller, sequential performance numbers of up to 550 MB/s reads with up to 500 MB/s writes, up to 75,000 IOPS 4K random reads/writes, can work as DAS, and most modern enterprise features. This drive will be available in 100 GB, 200 GB, and 400 GB capacities, the 200 GB variant was on display. It's unclear which kind of NAND flash the two drives use, but we're guessing it's high-endurance MLC NAND. Both offer 5-year warranties.

Kingston Digital, Inc., the Flash memory affiliate of Kingston Technology Company, Inc., the independent world leader in memory products, today announced the latest addition to its SSDNow family, the KC300 solid-state drive. KC300 enables business, mobile and power users to be more productive as the drive maximizes power efficiencies in notebook PCs. KC300 provides advanced power management via an LSI SandForce second-generation SF-2281 processor, allowing users to do more from a single charge.

KC300 is the next-generation business drive, replacing the Kingston V+200 and KC100 SSDs. The drive features enterprise-grade SMART attributes, allowing IT departments to monitor wear range data, SSD life left, write amplification and total bytes written. KC300 comes equipped with Data Integrity Protection featuring DuraWrite technology to extend the life of the SSD by effectively and efficiently reducing the number of Flash writes via an intelligent compression engine without sacrificing data integrity. RAISE reduces the number of uncorrectable errors in the drive, over and above standard error code correction.

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., a world leader in advanced semiconductor solutions, today announced the industry's first 45 nanometer (nm) embedded flash ("eFlash") logic process development. Samsung successfully implemented the new process into the smart card test chip, which means that this process technology fulfills the stringent quality requirements of the security solution market and can be successfully deployed on a commercial scale.

"Samsung's 45nm eFlash logic process has the potential to be broadly adopted into various components for security solutions and mobile devices, including smart card IC, NFC IC, eSE (embedded secure element) and TPM (Trusted platform module)," said Taehoon Kim, vice president of marketing, System LSI Business, Samsung Electronics. "The excellent performance from this smart card test chip will help solidify our leadership in the security IC market."