SCHLEIFRING Deploys Lattice ORT82G5 FPSC in Next-Generation Computed Tomography Medical System

Provides reliable, high bandwidth 2.5 Gbps SERDES operation supporting innovative contactless rotary joint

HILLSBORO, OR - AUGUST 25, 2003 - Lattice Semiconductor (NASDAQ:LSCC) today announced that SCHLEIFRING, a leading developer and manufacturer of innovative contactless slip ring systems, has deployed Lattice's ORT82G5 Field Programmable System Chip (FPSC) backplane transceiver in its test system for advanced Contactless Rotary Joints operating at 2.5 Gigabits per second (Gbps) and beyond. SCHLEIFRING's technology is used in Computed Tomography (CT) scanners from leading medical imaging vendors worldwide. CT or CAT (Computed Axial Tomography) scans are widely used in medicine to analyze the internal structures of various parts of the body. CT scanners use x-rays to create images of 'slices' through the body. Patients are typically placed inside a doughnut-shaped gantry of a CT scanner, where an x-ray tube rotates around the patient, taking hundreds of x-ray pictures of a thin section of the body. This data can be combined mathematically to produce an image through the patient.

SCHLEIFRING's contactless data transmission technology is based on capacitive coupling, combined with advanced contact power transmission slip rings. This allows a free inner bore of 1 meter on a CT scanner and enables a data transmission of up to 2.7 Gbit/sec per link, at a bit error rate (BER) of less than 10-12.

Nils Krumme, Research & Development Senior Manager at SCHLEIFRING, discussed the reasons SCHLEIFRING selected Lattice. "A year ago, when SCHLEIFRING started the development of its new generation data link, we decided to design the test equipment based on combined FPGA / SERDES devices then available," Krumme commented. "As we designed a test device and approached the problem with seven years of serial data link design experience we focused on jitter tolerance specifications and eye openings of the reference designs. Our evaluation concluded that the Lattice FPSC technology was the best."

"In addition, starting with virtually no FPGA design background in the team we nevertheless had a fully operating test device in 8 months after the decision to go with Lattice. This was made possible by the excellent support of the Lattice Field Application Engineers and our distributor, MSC. An 8-bit controller incorporated into the VHDL design controls the user interface of the test device. The test device incorporates a PRBS generator and a BER analyzer for three links up to 3.125 Gbit/sec each. The single FPSC chip needs only power supplies, clock source and boot memory, simplifying the board design. The ORT82G5 was a technically-superior, but cost-effective solution for our development of systems supporting multiple channels with up to 10Gbps for data transmission," Krumme added.

As the pace of development in medical imaging systems gets faster and faster, SCHLEIFRING has also seen data rate requirements double yearly. A move from single-slice CT systems to multi-slice systems has been underway for several years now. Multi-slice CT systems offer superior imaging capabilities at a cost of much higher data rates and storage requirements. SCHLEIFRING has undertaken intensive research and development efforts in order to cope with these constant and rapidly changing demands. SCHLEIFRING is the only supplier worldwide who offers a transmission system that is able to accurately handle the extreme data rates required in the CT technology free of losses at speeds of up to 300 rpm. To achieve the even higher data rates required by the medical market in the future, SCHLEIFRING is developing a passive optical transmission technology called GigaFOS®.

"SCHLEIFRING's selection of the ORT82G5 FPSC demonstrates that our backplane transceivers are ideal for a wide range of high-speed serial data transfer applications, from carrier-class communication systems to state-of-the-art medical imaging equipment," commented Stan Kopec, vice president of marketing at Lattice Semiconductor. "Reliability, time-to-market, speed, flexibility, and cost are all important factors for medical imaging systems, and the ORT82G5 FPSC met all those requirements for SCHLEIFRING. We're delighted to work with SCHLEIFRING to supply industry-leading solutions in the medical imaging field, " added Kopec.

Lattice's ORT82G5 FPSC devices are high-performance programmable devices that combine optimized embedded core functions together with flexible, general-purpose FPGA logic. In addition to its eight SERDES channels and over 10,000 ORCA® FPGA logic elements for general-purpose logic, the ORT82G5 includes fully embedded 8b/10b encoding, XAUI and Fibre Channel link state machines and multi-channel alignment capabilities. The SERDES on the ORT82G5 includes numerous best-in-class features:

• 3.7-0.6Gbps operating range per channel
• <225mW per channel worst case at 3.125Gbps
• Transmit jitter of 0.17UI at 3.125Gbps
• Receive jitter of 0.75UI at 3.125Gbps
• Drives 40 inches (1 meter) of FR-4 backplane at 3.125 Gbps
• Fast Locking Times with bit realignment at 300 nanoseconds (938 bit times @ 3.125 Gbit/sec)

The device also features 204 programmable user I/Os supporting a variety of advanced interface standards including LVCMOS, LVTTL, LVDS, Bus-LVDS, LVPECL, HSTL, SSTL3/2, GTL, GTL+, ZBT and DDR to facilitate easy interfacing.

To document the superior characteristics of its SERDES technology, Lattice has published its SERDES Handbook which provides actual data on the typical eye diagrams, jitter, lock time, and other key operational aspects of the SERDES technology used in the ORT82G5 device as well as information on its other SERDES-based FPSC, ispGDX2TM and ispXPGATM product families. It is available in electronic form on the Lattice website at http://www.latticesemi.com.

About SCHLEIFRING
SCHLEIFRING GmbH in Fuerstenfeldbruck (Germany) is a leading developer and manufacturer of innovative contacting slip ring systems as well as contactless rotary connections for high data rates. Products include slip rings, RF radar rotary joints, media rotary joints, Fiber Optic Rotary Joints (active/ passive), and contactless capacitive Rotary Joints. Company headquarters are located at:

About Lattice Semiconductor
Oregon-based Lattice Semiconductor Corporation designs, develops and markets the broadest range of Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs), Field Programmable System Chips (FPSCs) and high-performance ISPTM programmable logic devices (PLDs). Lattice offers total solutions for today's system designs by delivering the most innovative programmable silicon products that embody leading-edge system expertise.

Lattice products are sold worldwide through an extensive network of independent sales representatives and distributors, primarily to OEM customers in the fields of communication, computing, computer peripherals, instrumentation, industrial controls and military systems. Company headquarters are located at 5555 NE Moore Court, Hillsboro, Oregon 97124 USA; Telephone 503-268-8000, FAX 503-268-8037. For more information on Lattice Semiconductor Corporation, access our World Wide Web site at http://www.latticesemi.com.

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