National Semiconductor Introduces Industry’s First PCI Express 8 Gbps Quad Equalizer

National Semiconductor Introduces Industry's First PCI Express 8 Gbps Quad Equalizer

National Semiconductor Corp. (NYSE:NSM) today introduced the industry’s first quad equalizer specifically designed for PCI Express (PCIe) applications up to 8 Gbps data transmission rates. The device supports PCIe Gen1 (2.5 Gbps), PCIe Gen2 (5 Gbps) and PCIe Gen3 (8 Gbps) data rates, with typical power consumption of only 100 mW per channel.

PowerWise DS50EV401 Equalizer Extends Backplane and Cable Reach While Consuming Only 100 mW per Channel

The DS50EV401 provides high-speed signal transmission over backplanes and cables used in storage area networking (SAN), switch fabrics, communications infrastructure and automated test equipment (ATE). The quad equalizer compensates for transmission medium losses, reducing deterministic jitter on four data transmission channels.

It provides 20 dB of receive boost to equalize up to 10m of PCIe cable or 40 inches of FR-4 printed circuit board (PCB) at data transmission rates up to 5 Gbps, with less than 0.2 unit intervals (UI) of residual jitter at the equalizer output. Additionally, the DS50EV401 equalizes up to 30 inches of FR-4 at data rates up to 8 Gbps, while maintaining the same jitter performance. Its power-to-speed ratio of 13 mW/Gbps per channel, when used in 8 Gbps applications, positions the DS50EV401 among National’s PowerWise® family of energy-efficient products.