Teridian's Fast Ethernet PHY housed in 5-by-5mm QFN package

Teridian Semiconductor Corp. announced its MicroPHY transceivers for embedded 10/100 Ethernet applications. Touted to be the world's smallest Fast Ethernet PHY, the new MicroPHY transceivers are housed in a 5-by-5mm QFN package.

The 78Q2123 MicroPHY is targeted at consumer audio-video products, while the 78Q2133 is available for industrial temperature operating range applications. "Today, an Ethernet interface has become a de facto standard requirement for both consumer and industrial networked products. As such, our customers are requiring lower BoM costs and decreased size, without sacrificing functionality. We are pleased to be aggressively meeting that demand with the introduction of the MicroPHY transceivers," said Dennis Almeida, product line manager for Teridian's LAN and WAN products.

Both the 78Q2123 and 78Q2133 transceivers feature Hewlett Packard's Auto-MDIX technology. This feature, which is a must for consumer products, enables the PHY to automatically and internally compensate for straight/cross-over cabling concerns. In addition, the availability of an industrial temperature rated 78Q2133 enables the MicroPHY to be used in emerging outdoor and industrial applications.

To achieve its industry leading ultra small size, which is estimated to be 70 percent smaller in total board space than its nearest competitor, said Teridian, the company eliminated many hardware control pins that were present on its previous generation of PHY products. The removed hardware control is replaced with software control via the station management interface. The MicroPHY requires a single 3.3V supply, features low power and eliminates the need for expensive tantalum capacitors.

The 78Q2123 and 78Q2133 devices are already available for general sampling and volume production. Pricing in 10,000-unit quantities is $1.04 for the 78Q2123 and $1.44 for the 78Q2133.