National LVDS serdes chipset achieves 6.4Gbps performance

National Semiconductor Corp. has announced an LVDS serdes chipset that achieves a data rate of up to 6.4Gbps and supports a full 48-bit parallel bus interface.

The new chipset is part of the company's Channel Link SerDes portfolio and is comprised of the DS90CR485 serializer and DS90CR486 deserializer ICs. Typical system applications for this chipset include terabit core routers, multiservice access routers, optical switches, high performance color printers and copiers, and SAN fault tolerant servers.

Instead of serializing 32 bits of data onto four differential pairs, the DS90CR485/6 serializes as many as 48 data bits (between 66MHz and 133 MHz) onto eight differential LVDS pairs. The clock is sent over an additional 9th LVDS pair. This requires more serial data lines, but the lower data rates per line ease differential design requirements.

In addition, the extra-wide 48-bit parallel bus not only serializes 32 data bits, but also extra data, control, and address signals. This is advantageous for designers who need to extend traditional wide parallel buses across backplanes or cables. The chipset features adjustable transmitter pre-emphasis, dc balance, and receiver deskew to drive cables up to several meters.

Offered in a 100-pin TQFP package, the DS90CR485 and DS90CR486 are priced at $12.90 each in 1,000-unit quantities.