The industry's first nine-channel differential SCSI transceiver capable of achieving 20-million data transfers per second is available from Texas Instruments. This device, the SN75976A, is well-suited for applications such as hard disk drives and host adapter add-in boards that interface a computer system to a differential SCSI (Small Com-puter System Interface) I/O subsystem. Differential SCSI typically is used in multi-user computing environments such as video servers, network servers, mini-computers, mainframe computers and RAIDs (Redundant Array Of Inexpensive Disks).
The device performs to the defined ANSI requirements for Fast-20 SCSI. Fast-20 doubles the synchronous transfer rate from the current SCSI-2 standard of 10 million transfers per second, while maintaining compatibility with older synchronous and asynchronous protocols.
The throughput of a computer's I/O subsystem has become increasingly critical with the advent of multi-user systems and applications that require frequent transfers of large amounts of data. Doubling the speed of the SCSI bus prevents the I/O bus from becoming a performance bottleneck in today's high- performance computer systems.
Other features of the '976A include increased data switching performance, compact packaging and high protection from electro-static discharge, which make the new device appropriate for use in today's smallest peripheral devices.
The SN75976A is available now from TI and authorized distributors.
October 1995, vol. 12, no. 7
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