Friday, November 9, 2007

Silicon Labs Ships Power-over-Ethernet Chip

Austin's Silicon Laboratories, a developer of mixed-signal integrated circuits, said earlier this week that it has shipped a new, Power over Ethernet (PoE) chip. The new chip is used by electronics manufacturers to pull power from Ethernet twisted pair cabling for their devices, a technique which is being used by hardware manufacturers to eliminate the need for separate network/power connections to Ethernet devices. According to Silicon Laboratories, the firm's new controller provides dual-function, single-port support, and is designed for use in home gateways, set-top boxes, cable models, DSL modems, and Voice over IP systems. Among the features of the chip are an integrated DC-DC controller, which eliminates the separate need for components to provide different voltages to circuits.