Mindspeed Debuts 6.5 Gbps Signal Conditioning Family

Mindspeed Technologies announced the first four devices in a new family of low-power cable and backplane equalizers, also commonly known as signal conditioners. Mindspeed's new four, eight and 12-channel signal conditioners operate at speeds up to 6.5 Gbps and support PCI Express, SAS, SATA, Infiniband, SONET and XAUI.


The M21030 and the M21451 are four channel signal conditioners that feature the first adaptive equalizers to perform at speeds up to 6.5 Gbps for a variety of storage, server and communications applications. Adaptive equalization is a critical technology in applications where the transmission channel may be modified, such as when cables or blades are changed out. Mindspeed's M21030 four-channel cable equalizer supports all newly rate-doubled versions of serial ATA (SATA), serial attached SCSI (SAS), PCI Express and Infiniband.


The M21030 consumes a low 550mW of power and can be used in a variety of applications, including reach extension over twin-axial cables and multi-gigabit interconnect over CAT5 cable. The device can be installed on the line card or may be included as part of an active cable solution for applications such as QSFP. The M21451 is a four channel backplane equalizer that is designed for applications where different boards may occupy a given slot in a chassis thereby altering properties of the communications channel.


The new eight-channel M21452 and 12-channel M21453 backplane signal conditioners provide a low-power (115mW per channel), solution for backplane transmission over distances up to 40 inches across low-cost backplane materials such as FR-4 at rates up to 6.5 Gbps.

http://www.mindspeed.com