January 21, 2002 - National Semiconductor Corporation (NYSE: NSM) and Texas Instruments Incorporated (NYSE: TXN) (TI) today announced that they are developing a family of footprint compatible bus transceivers compliant with the newly published Multipoint Low-Voltage Differential Signaling (M-LVDS) standard. New M-LVDS devices from both National and TI will increase signaling rates five fold over existing single-ended backplane technologies, making them ideal for a wide range of high-speed, low-power communications applications such as wireless base stations, telecom digital cross-connect data carriers, storage and clock distribution.
Designers will benefit from the two companies' collaboration on common footprints and alternate sourcing. National and TI have agreed to the inclusion of the 75176, 75180, 34050, 34051, LV047 and LV048 industry-standard footprints on their M-LVDS product roadmaps to provide low-power, low electromagnetic interference (EMI) and high-speed upgrades to existing components. M-LVDS is an evolution of the TIA/EIA-644 Low-Voltage Differential Signaling standard that enables multi-driver connections on a shared bus for multipoint (double termination) applications. The recently approved TIA (Telecommunications Industry Association)/EIA (Electronic Industries Alliance) M-LVDS specification (TIA/EIA-899-2001) specifies up to 32 nodes to be connected on a shared bus for data signaling rates up to 500 Mbps. The standard provides the electrical-layer specifications and design guidelines for multidrop and multipoint data buses. Extending LVDS to the multipoint application space will allow customers to build National and TI LVDS product offerings into more diverse applications.
"M-LVDS is the only general-purpose interface standard that offers hundreds of Mbps signaling rates, supports multipoint buses, tolerates 1 V of common-mode noise, and that will have industry standard footprint compatible products from the two largest interface IC suppliers in the world," said Kevin Gingerich, Interface Systems Manager, TI. "This is a powerful set of attributes that translates into reduced cost, time-to-market and widespread availability benefits for all our customers."
"The standardization of M-LVDS will provide a new catalyst for the growth of the LVDS technology," said Guy Nicholson, Interface Marketing Director of Wired Communications Division at National Semiconductor. "We are delighted to work with TI to push for this new standard for M-LVDS that will open up new applications that demand increased data bandwidth and lowered power consumption. Customers will also be safe in the knowledge that there is also multiple sourcing of components."
A leading-edge technology providing high-speed data transmission for backplane and cable applications, M-LVDS requires little power, is high-speed and is very robust. M-LVDS offers a high-speed, low-power upgrade to the TIA/EIA-485 multipoint standard that is used in many applications including industrial control networks and storage applications. This new application focus is being standardized by TIA/EIA and will be published soon as TIA/EIA-899-2001.
Product information on new families of M-LVDS devices from both National Semiconductor and TI compliant with the proposed TIA/EIA-899 specification are available now on the companies' respective websites at http://www.ti.com/ and http://www.national.com.
About Texas Instruments
Texas Instruments Incorporated is the world leader in digital signal processing and analog technologies, the semiconductor engines of the Internet age. The company's businesses also include sensors and controls, and educational and productivity solutions. TI is headquartered in Dallas, Texas, and has manufacturing or sales operations in more than 25 countries.
Texas Instruments is traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol TXN. More information is located on the World Wide Web at: http://www.ti.com/.
About National Semiconductor
National Semiconductor is the premier analog company driving the information age. Combining real-world analog and state-of-the-art digital technology, the company is focused on the fast growing markets for wireless handsets; information appliances; information infrastructure; and display, imaging and human interface technologies. With headquarters in Santa Clara, California, National reported sales of $2.1 billion for the last fiscal year and employs about 9,800 people worldwide. Additional company and product information is available on the World Wide Web at www.national.com.
