Milpitas, California-based Digicom Systems Inc has launched a modem chip set that stores algorithms on a Winchester disk drive, floppy disk or PCMCIA card and downloads them into static RAM as required. The advantage that the company claims with its SoftModem is that the product can switch from facsimile, speech telephony or modem functionality on the fly, and have upgrades and enhancements downloaded over phone lines. The product uses Analog Devices Inc’s 2100 series RAM-based digital signal processor chip, and a public switched telephone network signal input-output chip. It can support CCITT V.32 standards, and Group III facsimile standards, as well as V.42bis MNP 5 data compression and error control and extended AT and Class 1 facsimile commands. Using these, and transmitting at 14,400bps, the company claims 57,600bps throughput over phone lines. In addition to its modem functionality, the SoftModem also supports the proposed AT+V command set for voice messaging and caller identification. In spring next year, Digicom is to introduce a version of the product conforming to the emerging V.fast standard. The current version of the product is not upgradable to V.fast as a result of differences in the hardware specification. The product is to be marketed to manufacturers as part of the MDK-200 modem design kit, and is being billed as a low-cost route into multimedia communications. The company expects that the first products to be developed using the chip set will be motherboards for portable computers. The company also forecasts a longer-term market for providing remote site users with access to dial-up or ISDN applications with the SoftModem on the motherboard of more powerful desktop personal computers. Digicom says it has signed up its first customers already, and that the first manufacturers to use the design kit are set to announce products this summer for shipment in the autumn.
