Modem Chipset Sports Controller-Less Design

A new customer-premises ADSL modem chipset called Unicorn is claimed as the first on the market to employ a controller-less design with a USB or PCI interface. Aimed at laptop and desktop computers, the new design is said to reduce cost, size and power consumption while allowing simple firmware updates to extend product lifetime. Power consumption in active mode is just 0.7W for the chipset and below 2W for the complete modem solution, thus matching USB bus power requirements. The complete solution also fits USB power rating in stand-by mode. The new chipset is based on the company's Ascot full-rate 8 Mb/s solution. The design has been adapted so that a portion of the modem functions can be implemented by the host processor, eliminating the need for a dedicated control processor chip. The Unicorn chipset is priced at $20 each/10,000. STMICROELECTRONICS INC., Lexington, MA. (781) 861-2650.