Get Off The Bus With Taxichip Devices

50 APPLICATION NOTES The contents of this article are based on information obtained from manufacturers in the electronics industry, or their representatives, and do not imply practical experience by Elektor Electronics or its consultants. GET OFF THE BUS WITH TAXICHIPTM DEVICES The Am7968 TAXIchipTMtransmitter and Am7969 TAXIchip receiver chip set from Advanced Micro Devices is a general-purpose interface for very high-speed (4-12.5 Mbytes/s) point-to-point communications over coaxial or fibre-optic media. In the past, high-speed data transfers required the use of parallel buses. Sending lots of bits simultaneously was faster than sending them one-bit-at- a-time. But this solution was messy: multiple data paths added cost and bulk to a sys- tem. Performance issues cropped up, too. Parallel buses were only practical over rela- tively short distances; trans- mission speed was limited by cross-talk and radio inter- ference (RFI) considerations. Also, reliability suffered as the numbe...