Interface Technologies

The market for the interface technologies has grown considerably in the last few years. Thus the need and implementation of these technological masterpieces by the wizards of technology has become almost unavoidable in the present day applications. The growth of interface technology encompasses different step by step developments which include Bluetooth™ USB, 1394, and DVI, among others. While USB rules in the PC and peripheral systems, Bluetooth is a favorite in mobile technologies and data-transfer.

The booming market for the application equipped with the interface technology forces the engineers to search online for the interface technologies. We know the importance of the time of our grey-matter rich engineers, so we have developed a website which includes interface technologies collected from the online catalogs of the branded and the most known names of the electronic industries.

Our existing associates have been able to juice out the benefit of partnering with our interconnected network of suppliers, manufacturers, distributors and representatives of interface technologies.

The various types of interface technologies listed with us are:

USB
Currently, a PC without USB ( Universal Serial Bus) interface is hardly found.
With USB, most peripheral devices can be connected to a PC as "Hot Plug and Play", and further, these days the focus is getting more on other fields as digital AV and embedded devices. The various types available with us are:

• USB2.0 Host Controller
• USB2.0 Hub Controller
• USB2.0 IDE Bridge
• USB2.0 Function Controller
• USB1.1 Hub Controller
• Certified Wireless USB
• IP Core

Wireless USB
Certified Wireless USB is an interface standard that allows wireless connection while inheriting the ease of use and data transfer speed of USB 2.0.
A new interface standard, Certified Wireless USB, expands connectivity via the USB interface by using the latest wireless technology, has been established. In the same way that, in the case of wireless technology for personal computers and digital home appliances, LAN, which until now used to be wired, is now spreading as IEEE 802.11a/b/g wireless LAN, the USB interface too will become increasingly wireless, which is likely to contribute to the revitalization of the personal computer and digital home appliance markets.

Serial ATA
Serial ATA Solution provides users an advanced storage interface with state-of-the-art specifications. Customers who develop their own sets using this IP core will also have access to various consulting and technical support services. Serial ATA solution from NEC Electronics delivers flexible solution that meets your needs.

Until recently, the Parallel ATA interface was the most common type of storage device interface. However, as hard-disk data transfer rates started approaching the Parallel ATA interface's maximum transfer rate of 100 Mbps, the performance improvement has reached to a technical limit, and thus the need for a breakthrough in storage device interface technology. It was at this point, in 2001, that with an eye to the future, a scalable, performance-enhancing interface standard—Serial ATA—was established.

While maintaining software compatibility with Parallel ATA, the Serial ATA standard applies high-speed serial data transfer technology to the I/O interface to archive a data transfer rate of 300 Mbps – three times as fast as Parallel ATA (Ultra ATA/100). Serial ATA is also superior in terms of reliability and space saving. 2005 will undoubtedly see Serial ATA become the PC storage interface standard, and will herald the start of its widespread employment in storage devices for digital home appliances.

PCI Express
PCI Express is a next-generation interface standard that supports the high-speed data transfers necessary for future development. The PCI Express solutions come in the form of ASSP solutions and IP cores designed to meet an extensive variety of customer needs.

The PCI bus that has been used in PCs, servers, communication equipment and various embedded devices has become a bottleneck for system performance due to the increasing amounts of data being handled in high-end storage devices and gigabit network communications. PCI Express™, a more efficient data processing standard set to replace the PCI bus, was established for this reason.

PCI Express is a next-generation PCI bus interface standard advocated by Intel Corporation and approved and released by the PCI Special Interest Group (SIG). PCI Express consists of a serial bus that is downwardly compatible with the PCI bus, supports rates of up to 2.5 Gbps per lane and up to 32 lanes, and realizes an extremely wide data band.

Demand for greater data bandwidth between chips is rapidly increasing and quickly nearing the capabilities of the existing PCI bus standard. PCI Express, with its 2.5 Gbps bandwidth, can answer needs for larger data bandwidth.

AMB (Advanced Memory Buffer)
AMB is the central part of fully buffered dual in-line memory modules (FB-DIMMs). The AMB is a key device recently proposed for configuring FB-DIMM.

It has two serial links, one for upstream and the other for downstream, and a bus to DRAM on DIMM. Serial data from the host memory controller sent through the downstream serial link (southbound) is temporarily buffered, and then sent to DRAM on DIMM. The serial data contains the address, data and command information given to the DRAM, converted in the AMB and sent out to the DRAM bus.

The AMB writes in and reads out from DRAM as instructed by the memory controller. The read data is converted to serial data, and sent back to the memory controller on the upstream serial link (northbound).The AMB also performs as a repeater between FB-DIMMs.

The AMB transfers information from the primary southbound link connected to the memory controller or the upper AMB to the lower AMB on the next DIMM through the secondary southbound link. The AMB receives information in the lower DIMM from the secondary northbound link, and after merging the information with information of its own, sends it to the upper AMB or memory controller through the primary northbound link. This forms a daisy chain among memory modules.

The AMB provides direct bus interfaces to DDR2 DRAM. With these interfaces, DDR2 DRAM can be mounted as the commodity memory on DIMM without the need to recognize a new-channel architecture.