Peripheral Controller Chip Makes Nice With PCI Express

March 13, 2008

MosChip Semiconductor Technology's MCS9901CV PCI Express (PCIe) to peripheral I/O controller targets peripheral expansion. The 1x PCI Express (PCIe) interface can access any of the devices, including an I2C port, a 1.5-Mbit/s parallel port, a limited

William G. Wong

MosChip Semiconductor Technology's MCS9901CV PCI Express (PCIe) to peripheral I/O controller targets peripheral expansion. The 1x PCI Express (PCIe) interface can access any of the devices, including an I2C port, a 1.5-Mbit/s parallel port, a limited ISA bus interface, a USB 2.0 host, and up to four RS-232, RS-485, and RS-422 mode serial ports. Four mode select pins specify 14 combinations of peripherals support, since a full complement cannot be active at one time. For example, combinations include all four serial ports, the ISA interface plus two serial ports or the USB interface, or the parallel interface plus the latter selections. Drivers are available for Windows, Linux, DOS, and Macintosh. A PC PCIe 1x adapter board is available. A suite of production-ready system software and hardware designs also is available. Design kits include a board-support package, software drivers, EEPROM utilities, and evaluation systems. The MCS9901CV comes in a 128-pin quad flat pack (QFP). Pricing starts under $10 in quantities of 10,000 units. www.moschip.com

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William G. Wong | Senior Content Director - Electronic Design and Microwaves & RF

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I earned a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology and a Masters in Computer Science from Rutgers University. I still do a bit of programming using everything from C and C++ to Rust and Ada/SPARK. I do a bit of PHP programming for Drupal websites. I have posted a few Drupal modules.

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