PCIe UARTs achieve up to 25Mbit/s serial data rate

The XR17V352/354/358 series is suited for remote access servers, storage network management, factory automation, and point-of-sales systems.

"The XR17V352/354/358 series is the industry's most advanced and complete PCIe endpoint solution supporting up to 25Mbit/s UART data rates, 16 GPIOs and large FIFO sizes," said Levent Ozcolak, VP of the interface product line at Exar. "These highly differentiated single-chip offerings provide system architects PCIe connectivity for their next generation OEM products while presenting a cost optimization opportunity for existing designs using PCIe-PCI bridges with PCI UARTs."

The XR17V352, XR17V354 and XR17V358 have a PCIe interface, which is compliant with the PCIe 2.0 specification. The XR17V352, at 9mm x 9mm is the smallest two-channel compliant device in the industry. All the devices share a common set of features including large FIFO sizes of 256byte TX /RX that optimize overall data throughput, automatic hardware (RTS/CTS or DTR/DSR) flow control, automatic software (Xon/Xoff) flow control, RS-485 half duplex direction control with programmable turn around delay, and Infrared (IrDA 1.1) data encoder/decoder. In addition, the series shares other features including a fractional baud rate generator, 16 GPIO pins, and multi-drop mode with auto half-duplex transceiver control. Software drivers are available for Windows 2000, XP, Vista, and Windows 7, QNX as well as Linux. In order to minimize overall power consumption, these devices operate from a single 3.3V volt power supply with a built-in buck regulator that can be used to power the core operating at 1.2V.

"The availability of complete driver support for a wide range of operating systems further simplifies system design and shortens time-to-market for new OEM product introductions," said Rakesh Bhatia, senior manager, strategic marketing, Interface Product Line. "This marks another step in Exar's continuing effort to extend the reach of its serial communications expertise to offer additional I/O connectivity options for high performance systems."

Exar has one of the broadest portfolios of high-performance interface solutions including UARTs, serial transceivers RS-232, RS-485, and support for PCI/PCIe, USB, VLIO, I?C protocols, as well as integrated UART/transceiver combinations. For chip-to-chip or system-to-system connections, Exar's single and multi-channel interface ICs provides immediate competitive advantages to designers: low power, reduction in board space requirements, increased bandwidth capacity, and enhanced product features. Interface devices are found practically everywhere including consumer embedded applications such as GPS, DTV, point-of-sale terminals, handheld, and industrial automation equipment, navigation systems, and networking environments.

Evaluation boards, reference designs, and software drivers are available for Windows 2000/XP/Vista/7, Linux, and QNX. With the availability of these tools and Exar's application support line UART customers can accelerate implementation by eliminating driver development, testing and diagnostic procedures.

Samples of the XR17V352 are available now in a 113-pin BGA over the industrial temperature range. In 1,000-piece quantities the XR17V352 is priced at $5.60. Samples of the XR17V354 are available now in a 176-pin BGA operation over the industrial temperature range. In 1,000 piece quantities the XR17V354 is priced at $7.20. Samples of the XR17V358 are available now in a 176-pin BGA over the industrial temperature range. In 1,000-piece quantities the XR17V358 is priced at $9.90.