Eight-port intelligent RS232
September 2005
PLCs, DCSs & Controllers
The PCI-1625 from ProMicro is an intelligent eight-port RS232 or RS422 interface card designed for lab and industrial applications where a PC needs to communicate with terminals, modems, or other instruments. RS422 applications use the optional Opt-8F/8Z eight-port RS232 to RS422 converter. Users can install up to four PCI-1625 cards for a total of 32 ports in any PCI bus-based PC.
An onboard RISC processor takes over the processing from the host PC. When large amounts of data from multiple ports are being transferred, servicing the interrupts alone consumes a large percentage of the capacity of the PC's CPU. The PCI-1625 serves as a high-speed, dedicated interrupt processor. Its CPU directly controls the board's CD180 RISC-based UART, guaranteeing 921,6 Kbps performance of over eight high-speed data ports.
The PCI-1625 contains 512 KB of dual-port RAM that can be used to store and run programs. The dual-port RAM maps into the host system's address space to give the fastest possible data transfers between the PCI-1625 and the PC memory. When the card initialises, it downloads the driver software into its on-board SRAM, improving performance and making version upgrading easy.
For more information contact Elton Prytz, ProMicro, 011 706 7913, [email protected], www.promicro.co.za
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