Product category:
Communications ICs (Wired)
News Release from: IDT | Subject: RC32438
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial
Team on 03 December 2002
Comms processor boosts PCI system
bandwidth
The newest member of the IDT Interprise PCI family delivers enhanced system bandwidth to communications applications within the enterprise and access market segments.
The newest member of the IDT Interprise PCI family delivers enhanced system bandwidth to communications applications within the enterprise and access market segments, including desktop/workgroup switches, gateways, wireless access points (WAPs) and virtual private network (VPN) equipment The RC32438 Interprise-PCI integrated communications processor also serves as a platform for IDT to develop future products that target emerging market segments such as embedded security and converged gateways
This article was originally published on Electronicstalk on 12 Apr 2001 at 8.00am (UK)
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The RC32438 integrated communications processor incorporates a 32bit MIPS CPU core with a double datarate (DDR) memory controller, a 32bit version 2.2 peripheral component interconnect (PCI) controller and two on-chip Ethernet interfaces.
Designers have a choice of popular embedded operating systems, including VxWorks and Linux, and a broad selection of development tools that reduce project design cycles and improve time-to-market.
The RC32438 integrated communications processor includes several key design features that contribute to boosting system bandwidth.
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The integration of two Ethernet interfaces reduces the level of bus traffic on other shared external buses and frees up bandwidth for use by other peripherals, improving system bandwidth and reducing overall system cost.
The PCIbus interface is an industry-standard interface with a broad range of supporting low-cost, networking, storage and graphics peripherals.
The PCI bus controller on the RC32438 device is optimised for bursting data and is designed to provide continuous bursting for sustained throughput.
The RC32438 device also incorporates a DDR memory controller that provides system designers with higher memory bandwidth systems than SDRAM-based solutions.
Uniquely, the device also includes logic that allows the monitoring of transactions on the IPBus, the on-chip bus that connects the majority of the I/O peripherals, providing customers an opportunity to tune the device to optimise performance for an individual system configuration.
The RC32438 processor also includes a local memory I/O controller, three general-purpose counter/timers, a ten-channel DMA controller, an I2C bus controller, two serial ports, an interrupt controller, a general-purpose I/O controller, and a serial peripheral interface (SPI).
The use of the 4Kc CPU core from MIPS Technologies in the IDT Interprise RC32438 integrated communications processor allows customers to select from a broad range of generic development tools, including compilers, in-circuit emulators and real-time operating systems.
IDT is already providing optimised VxWorks and embedded Linux solutions for the 79EB438 evaluation platform to enable customers to benchmark or prototype application software ahead of the availability of their own hardware.
The device is also supported by a diverse range of in-circuit emulator equipment compatible with the enhanced JTAG (EJTAG) interface to help speed hardware/software integration tasks.
The company's focus on boosting bandwidth is driven by the growing requirements for higher sustained data rates and increased processing of data passing through the system.
For example, Layer-2 desktop switching platforms are starting to support gigabit Ethernet local area network (LAN) connections in addition to the 10/100Mbit/s connections previously deployed, and are also starting to incorporate certain Layer-3 data processing functions.
In addition to the increasing performance demands in the Ethernet switch arena, wireless access points in the Enterprise are evolving to dual-mode radios and higher throughput 802.11 standards, and Enterprise gateways are integrating security functionalities on-chip.
The RC32438 device addresses these performance and market demands and offers a natural upgrade path for customers using other IDT Interprise-PCI processors, allowing them to create higher-performance systems while leveraging their existing application software.
(This was Electronicstalk's Top Story on 30 November 2002).
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