PCI Express Serial Communication Cards

ACCES I/O Products (San Diego, CA) has released a new family of isolated PCI Express serial communication cards — the PCIe-ICM Series. These PCI Express cards feature a selection of 4 or 2-ports of isolated, software selectable, RS-232, RS-422, and RS-485 serial protocols. 2kV isolation is provided between channels and between the PC and bus lines on all signals. The cards feature a x1 lane PCI Express connector which can be used in any available ×1, ×2, ×4, ×8, ×12, or ×16 PCI Express expansion slot.

Each RS-232 port is capable of supporting data communication rates up to 921.6 kbps and implements full modem control signals to ensure compatibility with a broad variety of serial devices. RS-422 and RS-485 modes support data communication speeds up to 3 Mbps. Existing serial peripherals can connect directly to industry standard DB9M connectors which are provided on-board each card.

The PCIe-ICM cards were designed using type 16C950 UARTS and use 128-byte transmit/receive FIFO buffers to decrease CPU loading and protect against lost data in multitasking systems. New systems can continue to use legacy serial peripherals, yet benefit from the use of the high performance PCI Express bus. The cards are fully software compatible with current PCI 16550 type UART applications and allow for users to maintain backward compatibility. The cards install as standard COM ports in all

operating systems including DOS, Linux (including Mac OS X) and Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista/7.

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