The HyperTransport Technology Consortium announced that seven industry leaders and two academic institutions have joined the Consortium. The new industry members include EMC, IBM, LTX, Media Fusion, National Semiconductor, Network Appliance and Texas Instruments. 

The Consortium has also created two new membership classes to allow broader participation in the Consortium. In addition to current Promoter, Contributor and Adopter classes, the Consortium has added Advisor and Academic classes. The Advisor membership allows firms to participate in the HyperTransport Consortium without exchanging IP rights and patents while the Academic membership is free and is open to any accredited educational institution. Academic membership provides access to the HyperTransport technology and IP for educational purposes. 

HyperTransport technology is licensed on a royalty-free basis through the HyperTransport Technology Consortium. It is a universal chip-to-chip I/O connectivity technology that provides high bandwidth, frequency scalability, low-cost implementation and full software compatibility with the legacy Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) and PCI-X I/O technologies.

With over 45 HyperTransport technology-based products and services already announced, a Compatibility Program that ensures interoperability between devices, and the specification's preservation of the vast software investments and infrastructure that already exist for PCI today, HyperTransport technology has established a significant footprint in a number of key market segments. With large companies like IBM and TI adopting the HyperTransport interconnection we can be sure that the technology will live and develop further.