Exar's transceivers boast improved fault tolerance

Exar Corporation recently announced the XR3080-88X family of high reliability RS-485/RS-422 transceivers. The company's latest transceivers are designed for harsh industrial environments with enhanced fault and voltage protection.

Exar's latest line of transceivers supports data rates up to 20Mbit/s in either full or half duplex configurations. The devices are intended for use in remote utility metering, AC and DC motor drives, building automation, security systems, process control, and other industrial automation applications.

The XR3080-88X family also offers extremely low power consumption which makes them ideal for high voltage isolated RS-485 applications by facilitating a smaller and lower cost transformer in the isolation power supply.

The analogue bus pins can withstand direct shorts up to ±18V, and are protected from ESD events beyond ±15kV (IEC 61000-4-2 Air Gap Discharge). The Profibus compliant output drivers deliver 40 per cent greater SNR (Signal-to-Noise Ratio) compared with standard RS-485/422, affording additional noise margin or extended cable lengths.

The XR3080-88X family are 1-driver/1-receiver RS-485 devices that operate from a 4.5V to 5.5V power supply. They feature enhanced ESD protection to ±15kV (IEC 61000-4-2 Air Gap Discharge, ±8kV IEC 61000-4-2 Contact Discharge, ±15kV Human Body Model), as well as short circuit current limiting and thermal shutdown. The XR3080-85X drivers are slew limited for reduced EMI and error-free communication over long or unterminated data cables (at 250kbps and 1Mbit/s data rates), while the XR3086-88X drivers operate at high speed (20Mbit/s).

Devices with DE and RE pins include hot swap circuitry to prevent false transitions on the bus during powerup or live insertion, and can enter a 1nA low current shutdown mode for extreme power savings. The transceivers draw less than 600μA from a 5.0V supply, and typically only 300μA when idling with the receivers active. The transceivers are available in industry standard 8 NSOIC and 14 NSOIC packages.