Intel Investors - New ATM & WAN products coming from Level One.
Intel/Level one will begin to target the high speed ATM and Sonet markets for transceiver ICs.
Paul
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Supercomm: Level One debuts transceiver line
By Mark LaPedus, Electronic Buyers' News
Jun 8, 1999 (8:19 AM)
URL: ebnews.com
LAN/WAN-chip specialist Level One Communications Inc. is using the Supercomm '99 trade show in Atlanta this week to unveil a transceiver for use in ATM and SONET/SDH networks.
Level One, which is in the process of being acquired by Intel Corp., has rolled out the LXT6155, a low-power, CMOS-based transceiver designed to support network transmission speeds of 155-Mbit/s (OC-3).
The company also plans to develop transceivers and related chip products for higher-speed backbones operating at transmission speeds of 622-Mbit/s (OC-12), 2.5-Gbit/s (OC-48), and even 10-Gbit/s (OC-192), according to Deepak Rana, director of broadband products at Level One, Sacramento, Calif.
"(The LXT6155) is our first device for ATM as well as SONET/SDH applications," Rana said. "This is only the beginning of our efforts (in the ATM and SONET/SDH chip markets)."
The new and future products in this WAN space will put Level One in direct competition with the likes of Applied Micro Circuits Corp., Lucent Technologies Inc., and Vitesse Semiconductor Corp.
Prior to the announcement, Level One primarily sold transceiver chips, media-access controllers, and other ICs for LAN-based applications, such as Fast Ethernet and Gigabit Ethernet. On the WAN side, the company sells E1/T1 chips, high-bit-rate Digital Subscriber Line-2 (HDSL-2) products, among others.
Growth opportunities in the WAN space is prompting Level One to move upstream and attack the higher-margin chip markets. However, the company is entering the OC-3 arena at a time when competitors are rushing to develop chips for higher-speed backbones at transmission speeds of OC-48, OC-192, and even OC-768 (40-Mbit/s).
The LXT6155, which complies with the SONET/SDH GR-253 standard, is priced at $31 in
1,000-unit lots. Offered in a 64-pin LQFP package, the chip is sampling, with
production slated for year's end. |
