Exar Launches Two Industry First Universal Asynchronous Receiver Transmitters (UARTs) with Integrated Level Shifters

“As the functionality and features of portable devices are continually enhanced, the demand for multiple voltage rails onboard increases,” said Levent Ozcolak, vice president, Interface Product Line. “The XR16M890/XR20M1280 can act as a seamless bridge between two or more components that require different operating voltages, thereby eliminating the need for costly external components.”

Product Details

The main difference between the XR16M890 and XR20M1280 is the CPU bus interface. The XR16M890 has a selectable 8-bit Intel, Motorola or VLIO bus interface. The XR20M1280 has a selectable I2C/SPI bus interface. The maximum clock frequency on the SPI interface is 26 MHz. Both devices share a common set of features including Auto RTS/CTS Hardware Flow Control, Auto XON/XOFF Software Flow Control, TX/RX FIFO Counters, selectable or programmable transmit and receive FIFO trigger levels, and Fractional and Independent TX/RX Baud Rate Generators. They also have Auto RS-485 Half-Duplex Direction Control, Multidrop mode with address detect, 128-Byte TX/RX FIFOs, and Infrared mode. Additionally, these devices have Sleep and PowerSave modes to minimise power consumption, and up to 16 GPIO pins are available.

“Capitalising on trends in emerging markets, and responding to customer demands, Exar has extended its serial communications capabilities once again with the highly competitive and extremely versatile XR16M890 and XR20M1280,” said Rakesh Bhatia, director, strategic marketing, Interface Products. “These devices offer system architects maximum flexibility by delivering voltage choice options for their designs so they can easily respond to rapidly changing market requirements. Using the on-chip voltage level shifters minimises the number of external components needed and optimises the overall Bill of Materials (BOM). ”

Interface Products

Exar has one of the broadest portfolios of high-performance interface solutions including UARTs, RS-232, RS-485, and multi-protocol serial transceivers and integrated UART/transceiver combinations. For chip-to-chip or system-to-system connections, Exar's single and multi-channel interface ICs provides immediate competitive advantages to system architects: low power, reduction in board space requirements, increased bandwidth capacity, and enhanced product features. Interface devices are found practically everywhere including point-of-sale (POS) terminals, digital televisions, industrial automation equipment, handheld devices, and networking environments.

Tools and Support

Evaluation boards, reference designs, and software drivers are available. With the availability of these tools and Exar’s application support line: uarttechsupport@exar.com, UART customers can accelerate implementation by eliminating driver development, testing and diagnostic procedures.

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