Integrated TDM drops glue, increases flexibility

Zarlink Semiconductor has introduced the ZL50073 family of high-density TDM/TSI (time-division-multiplexed/time-slot-interface) devices for high-bandwidth converged- and wireless-networking equipment, such as classes 4 and 5 central-office switches, media gateways, wireless base stations, and remote-access concentrators supporting as many as 128 input and 128 output streams at data rates as high as 64Mbps.

Integrated per channel A-Law/µ-law programmable-data-rate conversion circuitry allows the switch to directly transmit information among peripheral components, such as converting between voice standards, without intermediary FPGAs, glue logic, or other external circuitry, thereby decreasing board complexity and cost. Flexible bandwidth allocation allows selection of data rates on a two- or four-stream basis compared with typical eight-stream data-rate selection. Integrated BER (bit-error-rate) testing circuits with individual receivers and transmitters conform to the ITU-T (International Telecommunication Union-Telecommunications) 0.151 standard, enabling simultaneous testing of all input and output streams. For applications requiring switching or holdover functions, you can choose from a range of PLLs accepting selectable input frequencies of 8, 16, 32, or 64MHz, increasing your options when selecting a timing device. High jitter tolerance enables you to time switches directly from backplane clock and frame pulses, further eliminating intermediary timing devices, and four frequency-selectable output clocks and frame pulses drive a variety of peripheral TDM components or circuits.

Available in volume production, members of the ZL50073 family range in size and stream support. The 24K, 96-I/O ZL50070 sells for$127.50, the 32, 64-I/O ZL50075 sells for $70, and the 32K 128-I/O ZL50073 sells for $170 (all 1000).

Nicholas Cravotta

Zarlink Semiconductor
Fax 1-613-592-0200
www.zarlink.com