MCUs make for easier network integration

Edited by the Electronicstalk editorial team Jan 23, 2002

New IBM PPC405 microcontrollers from Sequoia, with up to four on-chip Ethernet ports, together with PCI and HDLC controllers, make networking easier to integrate into a system.

New IBM PPC405 microcontrollers from Sequoia, with up to four on-chip Ethernet ports, together with PCI and HDLC controllers, make networking easier to integrate into a system.

The NPe405L and NPe405H from Sequoia are the latest members of the IBM PPC405 family.

They take the high performance PPC405 core and embed it with a set of peripherals optimised for demanding, yet cost conscious, network-related designs.

Applications range from backbone core switches, network edge systems and cellular base stations to routers, switches, and remote access servers.

Two versions of the device are available from Sequoia; both featuring a powerful PPC405 CPU core clocked at 200 or 266MHz and offering the fully compliant PowerPC reduced instruction set.

The NPe405H has four 10/100 ports for Ethernet access and consumes a maximum of 1.5W power at 2.5V, (3.3V for I/O).

The two-port NPe405L reduces power requirements still further to 1.1W.

In addition, the processors have a 32-channel HDLC controller with separate, Full-duplex, transmit and receive capabilities over two PCM interfaces providing communication at up to 8Mbit/s.

The 405H also benefits from a PCI Controller offering 32bit PCI 2.2 compliance and performance up to 66MHz asynchronous.

Both the standard and low-power versions have an on-chip SDRAM controller operating to PC100 standards (PC133 for 266MHz parts), and catering for 4 to 256Mbyte per bank.

Other facilities on-chip include a peripheral bus controller, DMA controller, twin16550 serial ports, IIC port, and 32 general-purpose I/O lines.

All this functionality is combined in a 580 enhanced PBGA package that costs a tiny fraction of the price of conventional network processors.

The result is processing power and dedicated networking capability that is unparalleled at this price level.

Complementing the devices themselves, Sequoia offers a comprehensive evaluation and development system to support the NPe405 and to make it simple to write and test the software needed to build these controllers into networking products.