Microchip Announced New VSC8541RT Gigabit Ethernet PHY RMII / RGMII Transceiver

When your product needs to be designed to work in the most harsh of conditions, such as in military vehicles, aircrafts and others of the same sort, you need military-grade components to cope with extreme temperatures, radiation, and other environmental characteristics commonly found in the defense and aerospacial industries, among others. In these industries, not any product will do, as an unreliable component can lead to expensive problems or even result in a huge catastrophe. This can lead to a longer and more costly development cycle. Microchip has a new solution that can help with these application requirements. The new VSC8540RT Ethernet transceiver.

Based on their COTS (Commercial Off The Shelf) technology, the VSC8540RT transceiver allows the developers to implement their projects with COTS devices before moving onto this military-grade solution, saving time and money in the process. The ethernet physical layer RMII (Reduced Media Independent Interface) / RGMII (Reduced Gigabit Media Independent Interface) transceiver is a highly reliable solution, enclosed in a HiRel plastic package that meets the requirements for applications including fighting vehicle, cockpits and in-flight navigation systems, among others.

Regarding specifications, the VSC8540RT packs inside:  

• 10/100/1000Mbps Ethernet Bandwidth
• RMII, MII, GMII and RGMII interfaces
• EcoEthernet 2.0, with Energy Efficient Ethernet (EEE)
• Fast Link Failure 2.0 (FLF2) with failure indication for commutator ring applications
• Support for Synchronous Ethernet through recovered clock output and ring resiliency
• Widest voltage range (1.5 V to 3.3 V), fully-compliant parallel MAC interface device
• Configurable drive strength of the MAC interface, enabling better control of system-level EMI/EMC
• SOF (Start Of Frame) sync for ingress and egress, enabling highly accurate latency calculation
•  Integrated line-side termination to conserve board space, lower EMI, and improve system performance
• Extended temperature range from -55°C to 125°C

This new ethernet transceiver takes part in the company’s portfolio of aerospace and defense products, which is already is an interesting collection, including:

• 8-bit AVR-based microcontrollers with embedded ADC and DAC, CAN (Controller Area Network) and motor control interfaces
• 32-bit ARM-based microcontrollers with memory protection mechanisms and 100 Mbit ethernet capabilities
• 16-bit dsPIC digital signal controller, designed for digital power management
• 16-bit / 200 MSPS (Mega Samples Per Second) standalone ADC converter

As Microchip continues to produce innovative products, including those based in COTS technology, their teams team up with system manufacturers and integrators taking part in the management of obsolete systems, supporting their efforts in order to minimize the redesign work and enhance the life cycle of these products, in order to reduce the overall system costs.

Regarding pricing, the VSC8540RT transceiver is still in production, so there is no information in that regard. What projects do you think would suit this transceiver?

Microchip VSC8540RT transceiver link: https://www.microchip.com/wwwproducts/en/VSC8541RT

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