Oxford Semiconductor today announced that its Expresso family of PCI Express to Multi-Serial Port and Parallel Port expansion devices has gone into volume production. the OXPCIe95x devices deliver high performance, reliable, industrial-grade PCI Express-based connectivity expansion solutions to interconnect system processors with multiple serial peripherals.
Driven by the transition in processor-based systems and associated chipsets from PCI to PCI Express as the main peripheral bus,
the Expresso family of OXPCIe952, OXPCIe954, OXPCIe958, OXPCIe840 targets the PC peripheral, industrial control, point of sale, server, communications and embedded systems markets with 2, 4, and 8 serial port options plus a standalone parallel port device.
The new devices offer considerable performance, time-to-market and system cost enhancements over competing solutions, including PCI SIG certified PCI Express compliance, WHQL certified device drivers, a CPU overhead savings of up to 70 percent for 8 ports at 1Mbps, easy device customization with the company’s Oxide customization tool, and 30 – 40 percent BOM savings.
“Oxford brings a long history of developing leading-edge connectivity solutions to the marketplace,” explained Adrian Braine, Marketing Manager, Connectivity Solutions at Oxford Semiconductor. “With this single-chip, high-performance 950 UART based solution that supports up to 8 ports and offers 12/16 port expansion capabilities, the Expresso family truly leads the market. It will greatly facilitate the migration of commercial/industrial products from PCI to PCI Express while offering significant system cost savings.”
Oxford Semiconductor is very well established in the PCI market, having shipped compatible serial bridge chips for more than a decade. The company’s proprietary UART solution is recognized as one of the world’s fastest and is integrated into the new PCI Express product range, enabling the Expresso devices to achieve opt