Mountain View, Calif. - April 3, 2000 - Scenix, a leading provider of solutions for embedding the Internet, today announced that the latest member of its SX Series communications controller chip family, a 100 MHz version of the SX52BD, is now shipping in volume at a 1,000-piece price in the range of $10.00. The SX52BD100 is an extremely cost-effective vehicle for adding Internet connectivity, including Web server and e-mail capabilities and high-performance physical interfaces, to such “everyday things” as security systems, household appliances, utility meters, and factory automation systems.

Delivering up to 100 MIPS (million instructions per second) of processing power, the SX52BD100 combines the performance and features required for embedded communications and Internet connectivity applications. It provides the high-speed computation, flexible I/O control and efficient data manipulation required for software implementation of modem and other high-speed serial interfaces while simultaneously supporting a complete TCP/IP network protocol stack and executing application programs. In addition to high-speed communications, the SX52BD100 has been designed into a variety of video and other signal processing applications.

"We’ve had outstanding success with the SX Series, especially in communications-intensive applications," said Bulent Celebi, president and CEO of Scenix. "Like its predecessors, the SX52BD100 supports a complete TCP/IP network stack and runs application software, but it also has the increased horsepower needed to support high-speed interfaces that our customers increasingly want to use to connect their products to the Internet."

SX Series Features

The SX Series controllers feature single-cycle instruction execution and a fixed, deterministic three-cycle interrupt response time that eliminates resolution and SNR (signal-to-noise ratio) performance limits. This lets them support Virtual Peripheral™ modules, which are software modules implementing functions normally performed in hardware. The SX52BD100 supports all of the available Virtual Peripheral modules, and will also be able to implement the higher performance functional modules, such as Ethernet physical interfaces, that are planned for introduction in the near future.

The Virtual Peripheral modules, which are available from the Scenix Web site, are programmed into a fast on-chip flash/EEPROM program memory to configure the controller for a particular application. This “software system-on-a-chip approach” allows rapid, inexpensive product design and, when needed, quick and easy reconfiguration to meet the whims of the market or standards organizations.

Packaging, Price and Availability

The SX52BD100 is offered in a 52-pin quad flatpack (QFP) package. In quantities of 1,000, it is priced in the $10.00 range. It is available now in production quantities directly from Scenix, and through its worldwide network of distributors and representatives.

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