Automotive bus transceiver supports FlexRay PHY spec

austriamicrosystems has developed the AS8221 high-speed automotive bus transceiver that supports baud rates of up to 10Mbps, which the company claims is ten times the bandwidth available on a CAN-based network. It also supports the bus guardian interface, enabling fault tolerant and hard real-time applications.

With a differential bus voltage level of 1.3V and a time skew below 1ns, the AS8221 fully conforms to the FlexRay PHY specification.

Serving as the bi-directional interface between the FlexRay communication controller and the twisted pair copper wires, the AS8221 enables two-way communications with the MCU (FlexRay Host Controller) with full mode handling, including the low-power modes. The device also provides an extended diagnostic interface.

The AS8221 offers advanced bus-failure detection capabilities with the intelligent combination of bus-current measurement and logical comparators. A thermal sensor circuit with an integral shutdown mechanism prevents damage to the device in extreme temperatures. The symmetrical transient control for the high- and low-side driver for both the bus-minus and bus-plus line to balance communications over different network topologies.

The first generation of automotive-qualified AS8221 is available in a Pb-free SSOP20 package. Qualified samples of the next generation FlexRay Electrical PHY specification V2.1 Rev A will be available in December.

Pricing for the transceiver is Rs.300.37 ($6.50) per unit in quantities of 1,000.

- Ismini Scouras
eeProductCenter