Quad Equalizer Supports Highest Data Rates with Lowest Power Consumption

A The DS64EV400, from National’s PowerWise® energy-efficient product family, provides high-speed signal transmission over backplanes and cables used in storage area networking (SAN), communications infrastructure and automated test equipment (ATE).

The DS64EV400 compensates for transmission medium losses and reduces deterministic jitter for four data transmission channels. The device provides 20 dB of boost to equalize up to 10m of CAT5 cable, up to 40 inches of FR-4 printed circuit board (PCB) at data transmission rates up to 6.4 Gbps and up to 30 inches of FR-4 at data rates up to 10 Gbps -- with only 0.175 units interval (UI) of residual jitter at the equalizer output. National fabricates this signal-conditioning part on its proprietary silicon-germanium (SiGe) BiCMOS-8 process technology, which provides high performance-to-power ratios for high-speed interface devices. Along with featuring the lowest power at this performance level, inactive channels can be automatically shutdown for further power savings of 85 percent per channel.

The quad equalizer’s features make it easy to use with field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) and transmission media. Each equalizer channel has eight equalization levels simultaneously set by three control pins, or individually programmed through a serial System Management (SM) Bus. The DS64EV400 supports both AC and DC-coupled data paths for long-run-length PRBS-31 data patterns and balanced 8b/10b codes. It uses differential current-mode logic (CML) inputs and outputs, and features 8 kV of electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection. Additionally, the equalizer includes a loss-of-signal (LOS) detect for each channel, operates over the full -40 degrees C to 85 degrees C temperature range and is powered from either a 2.5V or 3.3V supply.

National also is introducing the DS32EV400, a programmable quad equalizer optimized for applications up to 3.2 Gbps that includes many of the same features as the DS64EV400. These devices are the latest additions to National’s growing family of signal-conditioning equalizers, which include the DS38EP100 and DS80EP100 power-saver equalizers, DS16EV5110 video cable equalizer, DS25BR110 LVDS equalizer, DS40MB200 dual mux-buffer, and DS15BA101 and DS15EA101 cable extender chipset.-National Semiconductor