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Pericom products enable serial connectivity in computing, communications and consumer market segments. Their products are essential in the timing, switching, bridging and conditioning of high-speed signals. Pericom's analog, digital and mixed-signal integrated circuits, plus their SaRonix-eCera™ frequency control products combine for a portfolio of solutions ideal for today's bandwidth-demanding applications.

Product Announcement

Pericom Semiconductor, a leading supplier of PCI Express technology used for switching, timing, bridging and signal integrity,  has launched the first complete single chip solution for the expanding CPU to UART (Universal Asynchronous Receiver Transmitter) I/O market.

Called the PCI Express SBridge™ (serial bridge) the new device integrates a complete PCI Express interface bridge with a fully featured multi port, multi protocol UART controller in a single package. The device is targeted at volume industrial and building control, point-of-sale, instrumentation, PDA, and GPS system I/O applications.

The SBridge PCIe to UART device is available in three distinct UART port count configurations: 2 ports (PI7C9X7952), 4 ports (PI7C9X7954), and 8 ports (PI7C9X7958). Pericom has designed all three devices to meet current demands for low power consumption, small package size and PCB layout optimization. The devices meet the requirements of the latest PCI-SIG PCIe 1.1 and PCI 1.2 specifications, and are listed on the PCISIG certification list.

According to Bill Weir, Pericom’s senior marketing director for Connect Products, the UART controller market is expected to grow to over 60 million ports by the end of 2008, fueled by accelerated adoption of embedded UART I/O in building control systems for HVAC, environmental, emergency, and communications control to host CPU applications: “We have already won key designs in Tier 1 embedded controller providers where the PCI Express SBridge devices deliver the performance, flexibility, footprint and cost savings required by their most competitive industrial and commercial platforms”

Key Features:
• Complete one-chip PCIe to high performance UART solution
• High performance 16C950 (RS-232) UART ports
• Backward compatible to 16C550/650/750/850 software
• Supports Baud rates to 62.5Mb/sec (sync mode)
• RoHS compliant and small footprint packages (PQFP and BGA)
• Customer programmable EEPROM port for ultimate flexibility
• Software drivers for major OS – Windows, Linux