The newest offering integrates PCI bridge functions into NEC’s existing PD98501 and extends NEC’s network controller versatility in applications requiring a variety of data/signal exchange including residential and small business gateways, MTU (Multi-tenant Unit) aggregators, and xDSL modems and routers.
New Offering Designed for Residential Gateways, XDSL Modems and Router Applications –
For several months NEC has been in production with its 100MHz PD98501 network controllers and strong middleware products for xDSL data and voice solutions. The newest offering, the PD98502, is targeted at broadband access applications such as xDSL routers and voice-over-DSL (VoDSL) due to the high-performance embedded CPU (MIPS RISC 64-bit, 100MHz VR4120ATM*2 microprocessor) and variety of communication ports, such as two ports 10/100 EthernetTM, a 50 Mbps ATM interface and USB slave interface.
Many communication protocols, such as HomePNA, Power Line Communication, IEEE1394, Bluetooth, IEEE802.11a and 11b will likely co-exist in the home. Exchanging high-speed data and real-time signals via these communication media will be handled by a residential gateway, said Chung Ho, assistant general manager of NEC Electronics’ communications group. With the convergence of integrated hardware/software solutions, standardization and deregulation, and high consumer demand, the residential gateway is an ideal means of communication in home networking. To be effective, this gateway requires a high-performance network controller, such as the PD98502, with sufficient headroom for future expandability and to support the bandwidth required by the peripherals.
Implementing dedicated hardware to process the high data rate, in combination with a high-performance CPU with sophisticated software, is the key to NEC’s Network Controller solution. NEC’s PD98502 with PCI bridge functionality operates at 32bits and 33MHz to handle various communication mediums on the PCI bus. The PCI bridge not only connects the desktop PC’s peripherals, but also provides the system designer flexibility to connect the bus to a wide variety of LAN peripherals.
