VITESSE
SEMICONDUCTOR CORPORATION
High Performance Serial
Backplane Transceiver
Data Sheet
VSC870
General Description
The VSC870 serial backplane transceiver has been designed to operate with the VSC880 serial crosspoint switch
to establish a synchronous high performance switching system. The VSC870 can also connect directly to another
transceiver to act as a high bandwidth backplane interconnect link. The transmitter converts a 32-bit parallel interface
operating at 62.5Mb/s to a 34-bit serial data stream operating a 2.125Gb/s. The receiver converts a 34-bit serial
interface operating at 2.125Gb/s to a 32-bit parallel interface operating at 62.5Mb/s. The transceiver performs
automatic bit alignment, word alignment and cell alignment to a connected switch chip or another transceiver. The
parallel interface has been designed with industry-standard FIFOs in mind to provide such features as automatic
packet retransmission, multicast with retransmission, camp-on and support for virtual output queues. These features
can also be bypassed to give the user direct control of the serial data stream. In addition, the transceiver and switch
chip can operate in a early arbitration mode that greatly improves bandwidth utilization. The transceiver also contains
a built-in a flow control channel and redundant serial I/O buffers.
The transceiver and switch chip have been optimized to be used in both distributed-controlled packet-based
switching systems (Packet Mode), and centrally-controlled cell-based switching systems (Cell Mode). The
transceiver can also be directly connected to another transceiver (Direct Mode) for backplane interconnect
applications. The transceiver runs off a 3.3V power supply. The serial I/O buffers contain on-chip termination
resistors (See Figure 19).
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VITESSE
SEMICONDUCTOR CORPORATION
• 741 Calle Plano • Camarillo, CA 93012
Tel: (800) VITESSE • FAX: (805) 987-5896 • Email: prodinfo@vitesse.com
Internet: www.vitesse.com
G52190-0, Rev 4.1
01/05/01
VITESSE [ VITESSE SEMICONDUCTOR CORPORATION ]
