More channels, less package for Marvell
transceivers
By Loring Wirbel
EE Times
(08/15/00, 8:35 p.m. EST)
SUNNYVALE, Calif. — Marvell Semiconductor Inc. will update its line of Gigabit
and Fast Ethernet transceivers this summer. The company will shrink its Gigabit
Ethernet physical-layer devices, both standard versions and versions with
integrated serializer/deserializer (Serdes), into 117-pin thin, fine ball-grid array
packages, which it claims are the first small enough to be used in
media-converter or fiber-optic interface modules.
Marvell will also launch Alaska II, a special dual-port Gigabit Ethernet device, by
September in versions with and without Serdes blocks.
The package for the BGA Alaska products, measuring 10 x 14 mm, is smaller
than the footprint of an RJ-45 connector. Both the 88E1000 Alaska and the
88E100S Alaska with Serdes are sampling now.
Meanwhile, the company will augment its 10/100-Mbit Ethernet products with
new six-channel (hex) and eight-channel (octal) devices, allowing unprecedented
port density for very small hubs and switches. Marvell executive vice president
Weili Dai said that as densities for 100-Mbit devices increase beyond quad
channels, the 10/100 speed maintains its popularity alongside the broad
migration of ports to Gigabit Ethernet speeds.
The multichannel Fast Ethernet devices, dubbed 88E3061 in the hex version and
88E3081 in octal, use a source-synchronous serial Media Independent Interface,
which allows longer distances on the motherboard between transceiver and MAC
or switch chips. They are said to be the first such transceivers to use
auto-media-dependent interface crossover, a technique to correct for crossed
cables. Straight-through and crossover cables can then be used at will in a
design, without concern for mixing cable types.
The transceivers offer support for the "jumbo frames" concepts promoted by SGI
Inc., Alteon Websystems Inc. and other vendors. The transceivers can support
frame sizes of up to 10 kbytes, at ±150-ppm clock jitter.
The 88E3061 is packaged in a 128-pin plastic quad flat pack and the 80E3081 in
a 208-pin PQFP. |
