Drivers offer single-chip clock switching solution

New from Motorola is the industry's first family of intelligent dynamic clock drivers for systems requiring redundant, fail-over clock solutions.

New from Motorola is the industry's first family of intelligent dynamic clock drivers for systems requiring redundant, fail-over clock solutions.

This new family of intelligent clock solutions is fabricated with Motorola's silicon germanium process and provides designers with cost-efficient, one-chip solutions.

Offering high performance and integrated redundancy, these solutions deliver increased system reliability required in next-generation computing, server, communications and networking equipment.

Clock drivers are key system components that synchronise and distribute data signals for a broad array of communications equipment - including computing, telecommunications, and network routing and switching equipment.

"Motorola has long been a dominant player in the clock driver market, by offering a broad portfolio of leading edge solutions for our customers' varied needs", said John Fairholme, Director of the Timing Solutions Operation in Motorola's Networking and Communications Systems Division.

"This new family of intelligent, dynamic clocks underscores Motorola's commitment to innovation and excellence in this market and has been engineered to provide our customers with redundant, high-performance solutions with lower output skew and power requirements".

The first members of this intelligent clock family include the MPC9893, the MPC9894 and the MPC9993 clock drivers - all of which contain logic for clock redundant applications such as clock failure detection and auto switching capabilities.

These integrated clock switch generators utilise a fully integrated phase lock loop (PLL) to generate system clock signals for up to four redundant clock sources and continuously monitor both input clock signals.

On detection of a failure, the clock is designed to switch to the secondary clock for phase/frequency alignment.

This intelligent approach has been designed to eliminate the typical phase bump caused by a failed clock.

With external feedback, the devices can provide zero-delay buffer performance for a smooth system transition to the backup clock.

Fabricated in silicon germanium (SiGe) technology, these devices offer lower power consumption than traditional silicon-based devices, and near-zero output skew to minimise device impact on the overall system timing budget.

The MPC9893 device is a 2.5 or 3.3V compatible PLL intelligent dynamic clock switch (IDCS) generator that operates from 6.25 to 200MHz output frequency.

This device features two-way redundancy reference clock inputs receiving two LVCMOS clock signals, and generating 12 phase-aligned output clocks.

The MPC9893 clock driver is available in a 48-pin LQFP plastic package.

Designed to support telecommunications and networking requirements, the MPC9894 device operates from 27.5 to 440MHz output frequency with an ambient temperature capability of -40 to +80C.

The device offers eight low-skew clock outputs organised into four output banks, each configurable to support various clock frequencies.

The MPC9894 chip may be configured through an I2C interface, and is available in a 100-pin plastic ball grid array package.

The MPC9993 IDCS, operating at 3.3V, is designed specifically for high-end redundant clock tree designs.

The device receives two differential LVPECL clock signals from which it generates five new differential LVPECL clock outputs.

Two of the output pairs regenerate the input signals' frequency and phase, while the other three pairs generate 2x, phase-aligned clock outputs.

The MPC9993 IDCS is housed in a 32-pin LQFP plastic package and is pin and function compatible with the earlier MPC993 device.

Prototype samples of the MPC9893 and the MPC9993 devices are available now, with production quantities expected to be available in the first quarter of 2003.

Samples of the MPC9894 device are expected to be available in January of 2003.

Pricing per unit in US dollars, direct from Motorola, is expected to be $12 for the MPC9893, $10 for the MPC9993, and below $10 for the MPC9894.

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