Ethernet PHY is startup's first DSP family member

Ethernet PHY is startup's first DSP family member
By Michael Santarini , EE Times
May 24, 1999 (10:07 a.m. EST)
URL: http://www.eetimes.com/story/OEG19990524S0005

Israeli startup MystiCom Inc. will unveil its MystiPHY110 10/100 PHY core this week with an eye toward becoming the next success story of the intellectual-property business. The core is the first of a planned lineup of digital signal processors that will focus on high-speed networking and communications.

Mysticom chief executive officer and president David Almagor said the core is well-suited to mature application areas, such as network interface cards, routers, switches and repeaters, as well as to such emerging applications as cable modems and set-top boxes.

He said the core is based on a patent-pending DSP architecture that is "very versatile" and that offers high performance and low cost for 10/100-Mbit Ethernet PHY. The core's architecture is largely digital, which makes it suitable for porting to multiple processes and more reliable in terms of yield than purely analog solutions, Almagor said. The architecture yields a low-power, 3 .3-V core with good noise immunity.

According to the company, the MystiPHY110 is scalable in two dimensions. The design migrates into smaller process technologies for increased port density and reduced cost per port, and it is scalable to gigabit copper for high-bandwidth applications.

The core handles "killer packets" without degradation and in testing has run through 300 billion frames with no errors, according to the company.

The core supports both Ethernet 10 Base T and Fast Ethernet 100 Base TX/FE IEEE standards. The PHY works with all cable lengths up to 160 meters.

MystiPHY currently supports 0.35- and 0.25-micron processes. MystiCom also plans to offer the core in TSMC's 0.18-micron process by the end of the year. The core is said to be portable to any standard CMOS process technology with 3.3-V I/O.

MystiCom provides MystiPHY110 to its customers in firm or hard formats. The company usually requires a sizable up-front fee in addition to per-port royalties for l icensing.

Almagor said the 30-person company recently received its second round of venture backing and is using those funds partially to develop a gigabit copper solution. "We plan to have DSP solutions ready as the new markets like set-top boxes and cable modems evolve," he said.

Mysticom's business plan has the company scheduled for an initial public offering in 2001. The company is backed by Silicon Valley-based Newbury Ventures and Israel-based venture firm Polaris II. Those companies were joined by Eucalyptus Ventures and private investors in MystiCom's second-round funding.

Analyst Jeremey Donovan at research firm Dataquest Inc. (San Jose, Calif.) said MystiCom has an interesting business model but pointed out that many of the companies that offer PHY systems started their businesses with similar intentions.

"A lot of the companies in the PHY business start out saying they are going to offer cores, then they move to chips and eventually to boards," said Donovan. "It wil l be interesting to follow this company and see where they are in a few years."