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Exar Introduces 2.5 Gbps SONET/SDH OC-48 Transceiver With Industry-Leading Jitter Performance (25% Less Than Competing Solutions), Low Power, and Market-First Host Mode Support

Posted on: Monday, 11 October 2004, 06:00 CDT

FREMONT, Calif., Oct. 11 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Exar Corporation , a leading provider of high-performance, mixed-signal silicon solutions for the worldwide communications infrastructure today added another device to its industry-accepted SONET/SDH transceiver product family. The XRT91L80 (STS-48/STM-16 PHY) is a single-chip solution for receiving and transmitting 2.488 Gbps SONET/SDH data that also supports data rates of up to 2.666 Gbps for Forward Error Correction (FEC) applications. The XRT91L80 delivers five distinctive advantages: industry-leading jitter performance, low power (less than 400mW), host-mode support, and a reduction in both BOM and required discrete components. These characteristics are ideal for cost-sensitive applications including add-drop multiplexers, cross-connect equipment, DWDM termination equipment, optical modules, ATM and multi-service switches, routers and switch/router combinations.

"Leveraging our high-speed, mixed-signal technology heritage, we continue to bring to our customers industry-leading and market-first solutions," said Dr. Bahram Ghaderi, vice president and general manager, Network and Transmission Division. "The XRT91L80 provides designers significant improvement in system performance, and design flexibility plus extends our customer-driven SONET/SDH PHY portfolio."

Distinguishing Features

The XRT91L80's outstanding jitter generation and jitter tolerance characteristics, which exceed the G.958 SONET Jitter Transfer specifications, enable substantial design margin for system designers. The device has an auxiliary on-chip phase/frequency detector and charge pump which, when combined with an external VCXO, forms a de-jittering Phase Lock Loop (PLL). This feature allows the device to be utilized in loop-timing applications to de-jitter the recovered received clock signal or provide a clean up of a noisy system/reference clock. The device contains serializer/deserializer (SerDes), clock multiplier unit (CMU), and Clock and Data Recovery (CDR) functions. The system side contains a four-bit, OIF SFI-4 Phase I compatible 622 MHz parallel interface.

Leveraging expertise in low noise, low jitter clock synthesis, the XRT91L80 generates all transmit and auxiliary reference clocks from either a standard 155.52 MHz or optionally from a cost effective 77.76 MHz reference clock. All the passive components have been integrated, and when combined with an optional external VCXO, the XRT91L80 provides state of the art performance at a reduced cost. For FEC applications, the XRT91L80 accepts an 83 MHz or 166 MHz reference clock to generate the FEC output rate. The device showcases typical power dissipation of less than 400mW, thus eliminating the need for a heat sink or any special airflow requirements.

"Superior jitter performance and low power consumption coupled with the total BOM cost savings realized when designing with the 91L80 device makes it an ideal OC-48 transceiver for metro aggregation and transport applications," said Sid Yenamandra, senior manager, Strategic Marketing, SONET/SDH and Advanced Products.

As with many of Exar's products, this device supports both hardware and host modes of operation. Hardware mode allows the configuration of the IC directly through the pins of the device. Host mode utilizes a four-bit serial interface to allow configuration via a microprocessor or an FPGA. In this mode, the control and monitoring features are managed through a comprehensive register set that permits full access to all device functions as well as providing complete support for device status and fault monitoring. With host mode operation, the XRT91L80 minimizes board space requirements and simplifies PCB signal routing. This is a very critical advantage when used in multi-channel line-card applications.

The XRT91L80 supports several loop-back modes that enable numerous test modes and system diagnostic capability. The device supports loop-timing which enables the system designer to operate the transmitter and receiver synchronously. In addition, the device outputs various alarms and status outputs to provide system alerts and comprehensive fault coverage.

Prices, Packages, Availability and Additional Information

Samples of the part are available now. The XRT91L80 in a 196 pin STBGA operates at 1.8V with 3.3V I/Os over industrial temperature range. In 1,000 piece quantities, the XRT91L80 is $45 each. Additional information on this product can be found http://www.exar.com/product.php?ProdNumber=XRT91L80 and other Exar SONET products at ( http://www.exar.com/area.php?areaID=6 ).

About Exar

Exar Corporation designs, develops and markets high-performance, analog and mixed-signal silicon solutions for the worldwide communications infrastructure. Leveraging its industry-proven analog design expertise, system-level knowledge and standard CMOS process technologies, the Company provides OEMs innovative, highly integrated ICs that facilitate the transport and aggregation of signals in access, metro and wide area networks. The Company's physical layer silicon solutions address transmission standards such as T/E carrier, ATM and SONET. The Company also provides one of the industry's most comprehensive family of serial communications solutions. Within this product offering, the low voltage and multi-channel universal asynchronous receiver transmitters are particularly well suited to support high data rate and increasing data transfer efficiency requirements for various industrial, telecom and computer server applications. In addition, the Company offers a portfolio of clock generation and clock distribution devices for a wide range of communications systems. The Company is based in Fremont, CA, had fiscal 2004 revenues of $67.2 million, and employs approximately 265 people worldwide. For more information about the Company visit: http://www.exar.com/.

Exar Corporation

CONTACT: Greg Kaufman, Marketing Communications of Exar Corporation,+1-510-668-7000

Web site: http://www.exar.com/

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