Speedy PCI-to-CardBus Introduced

TI Chips Operate Near Theoretical Limit

CardBus has already established itself as the standard PC Card interface on higher-end notebook computers, and should find its way into similarly positioned pen tablets in 1997. When it does, manufacturers will have a new high-performance controller from which to select, capable of offering data transfer speeds approaching the theoretical limits of the PCI bus.

Operating at 130MB per second, Texas Instruments’ new family of CardBus controllers dubbed the PCI12 Series offers three times the speed of current controllers. This opens the door to a number of data intensive applications such as full-screen multimedia and 100Mbps LAN adapters in a PC Card format. In certain situations, it will also permit two applications to function at the same time.

TI has managed to do this by employing an architecture that allows the controller to transmit and receive data at the same time. In addition, TI has maintained vigilance over power consumption by supporting Microsoft’s PC 97 hardware design guidelines, including the Advanced Configuration Power Interface (ACPI).

“Operating at 130MB per second, the PCI12 Series offers three times the speed of current controllers.”

This enables Windows-based systems to power down the CardBus controller when not in use, and to shut down the associated circuitry when a PC Card is absent. The result of this is longer battery life for the host computer. In fact, TI claims that the new chips consume approximately 50 percent less power when compared with the company’s previous generation controllers.