austriamicrosystems, a leading global designer and manufacturer of analog integrated circuits (ICs) for automotive, industrial, medical and communication applications, confirms its leading position in high bandwidth bus-systems by showing its newly developed FlexRay transceiver AS8221 at Embedded World 2005 in Nuremberg. At the fair, the AS8221 is on display as part of a Fujitsu FlexRay cluster and diagnosis system with a maximum speed of 10 Mbit/sec at the Fujitsu Microelectronics booth (Booth 12-411).

The AS8221 supports cost-optimized high-speed, fault-tolerance time-triggered applications operating as an interface between a FlexRay communication controller and the copper wire physical bus. The new device provides various bus and failure diagnostics, making it optimal for high-speed automotive bus systems, safety-critical applications, X-by-wire systems and time-triggered bus systems. Both the high-side driver and the low-side driver are included resulting in an absolutely symmetric signal with significant driver capabilities.

“The AS8221 FlexRay transceiver will be the first transceiver available on the market in volume for bandwidths up to 10 Mbit/sec in automotive applications,” said Bernd Gessner, General Manager of austriamicrosystems’ Automotive business unit. “This new product clearly demonstrates the advantages of austriamicrosystems’ 0.35 micron high voltage process, and the extensive know-how and experience of our design engineers for high voltage applications.”

austriamicrosystems is a pioneer in time-triggered architectures (TTA) having developed the first time-triggered bus-controller to be automotive qualified. Moreover, the majority of all shown concept-cars with x-by-wire are based on austriamicrosystems silicon. austriamicrosystems’ involvement in European Union research and development projects like Next-TTA, which focuses on new time-triggered applications in a real car environment, underscores austriamicrosystems’ position as a leading innovator in time-triggered architectures.

FlexRay is a new network communication system targeted specifically at the next generation of high bandwidth automotive applications like "by-wire" applications. These applications demand high-speed bus systems that are deterministic, fault-tolerant, and capable of supporting distributed control systems.

About austriamicrosystems
austriamicrosystems is a leading designer and manufacturer of high performance analog ICs, combining more than 20 years of analog design capabilities and system know-how with its own state-of-the-art manufacturing and test facilities. austriamicrosystems leverages its expertise in low power and high accuracy to provide industry-leading customized and standard analog products. Operating worldwide with more than 800 employees, austriamicrosystems focuses on the areas of power management, sensors & sensor interfaces, portable audio and car access through its business units Communications, Industry & Medical, Automotive and Full Service Foundry. austriamicrosystems is listed on the SWX Swiss Exchange in Zurich (ticker symbol: AMS).