Dense makes sense for new Texas Instruments ADSL chipset

Texas Instruments has developed an ADSL chipset with denser silicon architecture to provide lower power consumption for central offices, DSLAMs and line equipment, thus improving the economics of deploying DSL services.

The AC6 chipset “includes not only integration in the front end, but also system-level integration around different components that go around the entire chassis,” said Shankar Bala, TI’s product marketing director for Central Office Products. “A really system-integrated and cost-reduced solution provides a 40% reduction in rest-of-bill materials, all the passives [and] components that go around the chipset.”

The AC6 consumes 960 milliwatts per port, making it the “lowest powered chipset on the market,” said Bala.

Lower power consumption translates into cost savings because “you can get more subscribers, because you have a truly dense platform. The lower power you can get out of your chipsets, the more ports you can put in that DSLAM,” Bala said.

Additionally, Bala said, the AC6 chipsets uses power management techniques to optimize lower power.

“There are ways to get below 950 milliwatts. An operator can actually optimize the DSLAM for additional ports based on how they actually deploy these loops across different networks,” he said.

The chipset supports all worldwide standards to “interoperate with any of the modems that exist out on the network,” Bala said.

TI continues to work with new technologies to “meet these interoperability requirements by upgrading our software, upgrading our chipsets to hit all the interoperability targets that the operators--RBOCs or ILECs--put forth for us,” Bala said.

The AC6 is scheduled to sample in the first quarter of next year with volume product scheduled for the second quarter.