Seven of the computing industry's leaders, Compaq, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Intel, Microsoft and Sun Microsystems have joined together to address this important issue through an independent industry body called the InfiniBand Trade Association. The association is dedicated to developing a new common I/O specification to deliver a channel based, switched fabric technology that the entire industry can adopt. InfiniBand Architecture represents a new approach to I/O technology and is based on the collective research, knowledge, and experience of the industry's leaders.