AT&T Microelectronics and Exar Corp are to work together on a new project to define, market and sell integrated circuits for the telecommunications transmission market. Initially, efforts will be focussed on transmission circuits based on ASCII, Bell Communications Research and CCITT standards, the idea being to address the US, European and Far Eastern markets, but the range may be broadened at a later stage. The first fruits of the agreement are to be interface devices and applications, with AT&T using its central office market experience, and Exar its presence in the long range transmission market. The agreement has come about because of expected increasing demand for T1/E1 and T3/E3/SONET interfaces. Applications in this area to be targeted include CSU/DSU repeaters, multiplexers, and cross connects. Current products offered by AT&T Microelectronics include applications-specific integrated circuits, communication devices, graphics and speech processors, analogue integrated components and linear arrays, interconnect products, lightwave products and power supplies. Exar says it focuses on communications and mass storage products, and supplies ASICs using in-house bipolar, CMOS, EEPROM, and BiCMOS technologies.
