Cable extender chipset boosts
reach of low-power data transfer

Parts permit 0.15 to 1.5-Gbit/s signals to travel up to 400 m over copper cable

The DS15BA101/DS15EA101 cable extender chipset is offered as the lowest-power chipset of its kind to boost the reach of 0.15- to 1.5-Gbit LVDS/LVPECL/CML signals up to 400 m over copper cable (the previous limit was less than 20 m), with only 360 mW of power consumption. In addition, the chipset extends serial data from SerDes and FPGAs over CAT5 and coaxial cable at up to half the cost of fiber-optic solutions.

Housed in an 8-pin LLP package, the DS15BA101 is a differential buffer with adjustable output voltage that is powered from a single 3.3-V supply and consumes 150 mW typ at 1.5 Gbits/s. Available in a 16-pin LLP package, the DS15EA101 adaptive equalizer automatically adapts to equalize any cable length from 0 m to lengths that attenuate the signal by 35 dB at 750 MHz. The DS15EA101 also features a supply voltage of 3.3 V and a power consumption of 210 mW typ at 1.5 Gbits/s.

Also available is the DriveCable002EVK reference design, which includes an evaluation system, schematic, and PCB layout Gerber files. It plugs directly into a designer's existing system and supports CAT5/5e/6/7 100-W twisted pair cables up to 100 m and 50-W coaxial cables up to 400 m. (Ea/1,000: DS15BA101, $4; DS15EA101, $8.75�available now.)