Vitesse Unveils New Crosspoint Switch

Vitesse Unveils New Crosspoint Switch - Extending Breakthrough Signal Integrity Technology to Smaller Form Factors

Vitesse Semiconductor Corporation today announced the availability of the VSC3304, a 8.5 Gbps, 4x4 port, crosspoint switch. The device offers enhanced signal equalization capabilities for transmitting multi-gigabit data signals across printed circuit boards, through backplane connectors, and over copper cabling used in networking and storage systems. The VSC3304 is the latest in Vitesse's industry-leading portfolio of crosspoint and signal conditioner IC products to feature PixEQ technology. PixEQ technology advances high-speed, signal integrity performance.

The combined functions of crosspoint switching and Vitesse's unique PixEQ equalization make the VSC3304 a cost-effective, compact, low-power signal integrity tool that is useful wherever there are high-speed signals. It is the only device in the industry to implement the first dual-time, constant programmable, output signal pre-emphasis. This feature allows the VSC3304 to compensate for multiple impairments in a signal path such as in a connector or long PCB trace. The VSC3304 also features fully re-configurable Input/Output (I/O) interfaces enabling the user to optimize I/Os to exact system requirements.

"Vitesse crosspoints and PixEQ technology allow us to solve fundamental, high-speed, signal integrity issues in our system level ATCA development. Vitesse continues to deliver robust, compact crosspoint solutions that we use as tools to address the latest networking protocols and signal integrity demands of our systems," stated Curtis Miller, product line manager at RadiSys.

Unique Feature Set
The VSC3304 is part of Vitesse crosspoint portfolio capable of detecting and transmitting loss of signal (LOS), allowing native Out-of-Band (OOB) support of SAS/SATA storage protocols. This architecture also provides protocol transparent operation and permits each channel to run independently. This device supports a wide frequency range encompassing virtually all data protocols including GbE; XAUI; 2X; XAUI; SAS; SATA; Fibre Channel; and InfiniBand.

Additionally, the VSC3304 incorporates a broadband, fully non-blocking and multicasting switch core and flexible fourth-generation equalization and pre-emphasis I/O capability. The re-configurable I/O allows any port to operate as either an input or output for a total of seven different I/O combinations from 1:7 to 7:1. Re-configurable I/O dramatically improves routing flexibility and reduces overall chip count.The device performs signal fan-out, loop back and protection switching and can regenerate signals otherwise compromised by losses in the transmission medium.

Vitesse's PixEQ equalization capability works independently of the data rate, providing effective compensation for deterministic jitter across a wide range of operating conditions without requiring re-tuning. The VSC3304 consumes only 160 mW per channel, dramatically reducing power requirements by up to 50 percent over previous generation devices.

"With the small size, economy, flexibility, and performance, the VSC3304 rewrites the traditional rules of solving high-speed signal integrity issues. This is the most universal, economical signal integrity solution for high-speed copper interconnects," said Juan Garza, product marketing manager, Serial Data Solutions, at Vitesse - Vitesse.