Serial Comms Boards

Interworld Electronics has released a line of CompactPCI serial communications boards. These use Quatech's experience with PCI communication board design, to take advantage of the convenience and industrial and embedded potential offered by CompactPCI.

With this release, Quatech becomes one of only a few suppliers to offer CompactPCI cards designed solely for data communication. This minimises the cost and complexity of adding additional functionality to CompactPCI systems.

To provide a full range of serial protocols and connectivity, the products include eight configured CompactPCI communication boards. The boards are available with two or four ports, in RS-232 and RS-422/RS-485 versions.

The two-port cards are accessed via D-9 connectors or RJ45-10 shielded modular connectors. The four-port cards are also available with RJ45-10 connectors or with a single D-37 output connector that can be converted to four D-9 ports using an optional cable. All ports are protected by 2500 VRMS isolation.

For enhanced performance in heavy multitasking environments, the boards have standard 16750 UARTs - high-performance transmitter chips - with 64 byte FIFOs. The deep FIFO memory allows applications to run more efficiently by increasing communication speed and lowering CPU overhead.

The RS-232 boards operate at up to 460.8 Kbps and the RS-422/485 boards can reach speeds up to 921.6 Kbps. Support is provided under Windows 98/ME/2000 and OS/2.