Chrontel, Inc. (Chrontel) has introduced a new series of CH6000 passive equalizer devices. The new device is designed to improve the performance of high data-rate transmission media. The new CH6000 devices can compensate for the transmission losses that plague interconnects at data rates up to 5 Gbps. These new devices are ideally suited for the HDMI, DisplayPort and other high-speed cabling, and also for FR4 printed circuit boards (PCBs) used as backplane system interconnects.

The copper used as the transmission medium in cables, and FR4 material used as an insulator in the PCBs, act like a low-pass filters that attenuate the high frequency components of a high-speed digital signal. This attenuation brings inter-symbol interference (ISI) at giga-bit data rates closing the symbol eye that defines the data transmission. The new CH6000 devices are passive network high-pass filters that create an inverse channel response, which counteracts low-pass characteristics inherent in the copper and FR4. By including a CH6000 device, the transmission medium attains an essentially flat frequency response over the whole giga-bit frequency spectrum required for the HDMI, DisplayPort and the other high-speed protocols.

With the proliferation of HDMI, DisplayPort and other high data-rate protocols, which are essential for digital video transmission and networking, the physical limitations of copper connections are increasingly revealed, said David Soo, Chrontel president and chief executive officer. Our customers needed a very low-cost way to improve transmission performance, without adding complexity to their PC and CE systems. Hundreds of millions of cables and PCBs produced annually can benefit from the incorporation of passive equalization technology.

The new CH6000 devices are the passive equalizers that need no power or ground connections. They can be placed anywhere in data path, offering great flexibility in routing and the placement design. The devices are protocol independent, providing bi-directional operation and the loss compensation for any differential signal.

Pricing and Availability:

The new Chrontel CH6000 production volumes will be available in March 2009. CH6000 devices are available in a 4-pin LFCSP/LPCC packages and are priced at $0.50 in 10,000 piece quantities.