The new TI PCI1130 PCI-to-CardBus Controller is one of the first CardBus controllers available on the market. It bridges the high-speed PCI system bus used in most new PC designs with the 32-bit CardBus peripheral interface. The device supports two CardBus slots that can accept either 32-bit CardBus cards or 16-bit PC (PCMCIA) Cards.
Major PC manufacturers are designing the PCI1130 into their next-generation notebook computer designs to be announced in 1996. System software support for the '1130 is provided by the industry's leading card and socket services vendors, including Systemsoft, Phoenix, Award and AMI. The '1130 has also been tested and verified as compatible with CardBus cards from customers.
CardBus is a 32-bit extension of the 16-bit PC Card peripheral interface, widely known as the PCMCIA interface for its parent organization, the Personal Computer Memory Card International Association. With wider data and faster clock speeds than the PC Card bus, CardBus can also support much higher rates of data throughput-up to 132 megabytes per second (Mbytes/s) ultimately, compared with only 20 Mbytes/s for the PC Card 16. This higher data throughput will make it possible to use CardBus cards for high-speed communication with networks, hard disk drives, external video monitors, cameras and a variety of other devices that have until now been all but unavailable to notebook PCs.
"CardBus offers the necessary increase in performance to bring new multimedia applications to notebook PCs," said Edward Agis, marketing manager of TI's PCIbus products group. "TI's PCI1130 CardBus controller gives system developers a way to design in CardBus capability affordably. When these designs appear on the shelves, add-in card developers will have a ready market for their CardBus innovations, and PC users will benefit from the new multimedia applications offered by CardBus products."
The PCI1130 operates at 3.3 volts, reducing power consumption in notebook PCs for longer battery life between charges. Additional power savings come from the hardware and software suspend modes which enable the system to power off between keystrokes while internal registers are saved. Universal I/O with 5-volt tolerance allow the device to be used in designs operating at either 3.3 or 5 volts. Universal driver/receivers allow for any combination of 3.3- or 5-volt PC Cards simultaneously.
The PCI1130 controls power to one or two PC Cards using TI's fully integrated TPS2202I or TPS2202AI power distribution switches. The PCI1130 and the TPS2202I/AI, which communicate through a serial communications protocol, can provide any combination of VCC/VPP voltages required by the latest release of PC Card standards. In addition, the TPS2202I/AI provides current limiting and reporting, thermal protection, micro power operation and shutdown.
Other features of the PCI1130 provide additional options in system design. Support for zoom video allows PC Card cards to bypass the PCI bus altogether, connecting directly to peripheral control devices for real-time video and audio operation. Burst mode access speeds up data transfer and overall system operation. Direct memory access (DMA) support for distributed DMA maintains compatibility with existing peripherals that require DMA. TI is part of the Compaq-led industry consortium defining the "PCIway" distributed DMA memory interrupt serialization scheme. Future derivatives of the PCI113x generation will include centralized DMA to offer additional options for PC OEMs requiring this feature.
"We developed this product based on extensive research into the system requirements of major PC manufacturers," said Agis. "According to what these customers have told us, the PCI1130 has the right features for system design in the emerging CardBus market."
TI's PCI1130 PCI-to-CardBus Controller is packaged in a 208-pin thin quad flatpack (TQFP) package, saving valuable board space. The device is sampling now to customers, with volume production planned for 1Q96. Planned pricing is $14.39 each in quantities of 150,000.
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