PCI Serial/Parallel Add-In Cards Get One-Chip Solution

The OXmPCI954 is designed to handle 15-Mbit/s asynchronous and 60-Mbit/s synchronous serial data rates. It integrates four high-performance UART channels, a 3.3-V PCI interface, and a local bus/IEEE-1284 port into a 160-pin LQFP. The chip offers two functions: an ultra-fast quad UART compatible with the industry-standard 16C550, and either an 8-bit local bus or a bidirectional IEEE-1284 parallel port supporting SPP, EPP, and ECP protocols. An 8-bit pass-through local bus option allows the chips to be daisy-chained to create up to 20 serial ports. A 128-byte deep transmitter and receiver FIFOs significantly reduce CPU overhead and boost add-in card performance. The PCI interface fully complies with PCI bus version 3 and PCI power-management version 1.1. Available now, it costs $11.68 in 1000-unit lots.