"NEWS NEWS NEWS---Monday December 11, 12:37 pm Eastern Time
Press Release
Conexant Cuts Size and Cost of Line Cards for T3/E3 Equipment With
Industry's Highest-Density, Lowest-Power Framer Device
NEWPORT BEACH, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 11, 2000--
Latest Product Further Extends Industry's Broadest T3/E3 Family Across
All Major Line-Card Functions; Industry's First Complete 12-Port,
Framer-and-Interface Device Cuts Power Consumption and Includes All
Technology Required to Prepare Internet Traffic for Transmission
Conexant Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq:CNXT - news) Monday announced the industry's first 12-port T3/E3 framer and cell delineator, making the company the only
vendor to provide complete high-density T3/E3 solutions including framers and companion line interface units (LIUs).
The new framer extends a product family of application-specific semiconductor products (ASSPs) that now encompass all of the circuit-aggregation functions
required for a typical T3/E3 line card.
Conexant's CX28365 device is the first to integrate 12 framers into a single package that also includes an industry-standard universal test and operations interface for
ATM (UTOPIA) Level 2 system interface. It reduces power consumption by more than 60 percent to less than 190mW per port, while taking less than half the
board space of alternative solutions.
When combined with external multi-channel, high-level data link controllers (HDLCs) -- such as Conexant's CX28500 -- and the company's network processor
family, the CX28365 framer offers the flexibility to support multiple transmission protocols such as ATM adaptation layer (AAL) and unchannelized frame relay with
a single physical-layer (PHY) interface solution.
Conexant's CX28365 device is targeted at the fast-growing T3/E3 segment of the worldwide communications marketplace. According to a report by analyst firm
IDC, the market for T3/E3 ASSPs grew by 105.8 percent between 1998 and 1999.
``The CX28365 is the first device in Conexant's third generation of T3/E3 framers, which began with the first-generation Bt8330 T3/E3 framer and HDLC that is still
in production today,'' said Jeremy Bicknell, physical-layer product line manager for Conexant's network access division.
``The density of the CX28365 device is three times higher than existing, competing quad-port devices, and triples that of Conexant's second-generation solution, the
CX28348/RS8228 two-chip octal T3/E3 framer/octal ATM PHY.''
Applications for the CX28365 device include multi-service ATM switches, digital cross-connect systems, optical transport equipment, access concentrators as well
as core and edge routers using various packet protocols such as multi-protocol label switching (MPLS).
In these applications, the CX28365 offers the highest-available integration density at the lowest cost for T3 and E3 user-network interface (UNI) and
network-to-network interface (NNI) ATM interfaces. The addition of four Conexant CX28333 triple LIUs and a microprocessor -- for configuration and control --
creates a complete solution for interfacing cells between a standard UTOPIA Level 2 system interface and the physical-line connections.
The CX28365 features glueless interfaces to a variety of processors, LIUs and ATM segmentation and reassembly (SAR) devices. The device supports
performance monitoring and joint test action group (JTAG) boundary scan testing, and is fully compliant with all relevant ATM Forum, International
Telecommunciations Union (ITU) and Bellcore standards.
Technical Details
The CX28365 device supports DS3-M13, DS3-C-bit parity, E3-G.751 and E3-G.832 framing formats, integrated with ATM PHY processing functions in
accordance with ATM Forum Cell Based Transmission Convergence Sublayer specifications (af-phy-0043.000), DS3 Physical Layer Interface Specification
(af-phy-0054.000) and E3 Public UNI (af-phy-0034.000).
Optionally, the device provides a flexible overhead-bit-generation method to source overhead bits on an individual framer. In conjunction with the ability to bypass
the T3 cell delineation function on a per-port basis, this enables the CX28365 device to be integrated into existing systems so that it can operate as a standalone
framer with different unchannelized protocols.
Additionally, the T3/E3 framers can be bypassed, allowing the device to be used as a standalone cell delineator or transmission convergence device with external line
framers and transceivers at speeds from 64 Kbps to 50 Mbps.
The ATM cell interface recovers T3 or E3 receive payload cell alignment from the header error control (HEC) field and automatically passes or rejects idle cells --
or selected cells -- based on the programmable header register configuration. The cell aligner performs single-bit HEC error correction as well as multiple-bit error
detection.
Cell status, cell counts and error counts are available from the device-status registers.
In the transmit direction, the device reads cell data from the UTOPIA interface, inserts headers and generates the HEC field. If no cell traffic is available, idle cells are
automatically inserted into the payload. In accordance with ATM Forum specifications, cells may be inserted into the payload in direct format, or with the addition of
PHY convergence protocol (PLCP) framing overhead.
In order to facilitate coherence of systemwide status information, as well as diagnostic partitioning, one-second status latching and one-second counter latching may
be enabled. In common with other Conexant devices, a one-second input/output (I/O) scheme is used to synchronize multiple devices and provide a common
fault-monitoring (FM) and performance-monitoring (PM) timebase.
The software device driver for the CX28365 is part of Conexant's telecom application package (TAP) family of ANSI C language source-code device drivers. TAP
software simplifies the use of the CX28365 in different applications, providing additional features such as FM, PM and terminal data link (TDL).
The CX28365 TAP combined with the CX28365 framer and CX28333 LIU results in a complete standards-compliant PHY solution for T3 and E3 applications.
The TAP source code offers a well-defined portable driver application-programming interface (DRV API) to higher-level application software and lower-level utility
functions. The software is independent of operating system (OS) or real-time executive environment and can be used in object-oriented systems.
The driver can function in a ``polled'' environment, or can be configured to call user-defined event handlers upon changes to facility and internal states.
Pricing, Packaging and Availability
The CX28365 is sampling now, along with a companion evaluation module. Volume production is scheduled to begin in the second calendar quarter of 2001. It is
packaged in a 35mm 456-pin plastic ball grid array (PBGA) that has been characterized for -40 to 85 C temperature ranges. The device is priced at $295 each in
OEM quantities of 10,000. "
CNXT is about to breakout in a major way (my opinion). Not going to sell quite yet.
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