DALLAS (December 3, 2008) - Texas Instruments (TI) (NYSE: TXN) today introduced a family of +/- 70V, fault protected RS-485 transceivers that achieve overvoltage protection with no external termination needed. These low-power devices serve as drop-in upgrades to existing RS-485 designs without costly board redesigns. The new half- and full-duplex transceivers simplify design in industrial automation, motor control and heating, ventilating, and air conditioning (HVAC) equipment. (See www.ti.com/sn65hvd1794-pr.) 

The SN65HVD17xx family is designed to survive overvoltage faults, such as direct shorts to power supplies, miswiring faults, connector failures, cable crushes, and tool misapplications. The widest common mode, from -20V to -25V, allows for operation in harsh environments with large ground differences. These transceivers are offered in either a SOIC or DIP package and operate at a variety of speed grades such as 128 Kbps, 1 Mbps, and 10 Mbps to meet the needs of a variety of applications.

The SN65HVD1780/1/2 operate over a wide voltage range from 3V to 5V, enabling applications that have fluctuating power sources. The SN65HVD1794 has a cable invert pin, which allows for simple correction bus wires that were incorrectly configured. Additionally, the SN65HVD17xx family offers many integrated features such as:

• Bus ESD protection +/- 16k-V JEDEC human body model
• Failsafe receiver for open-circuit, short-circuit and idle-bus conditions
• Power-up, power-down and glitch-free operation
• Supports up to 256 or 320 nodes

The ultra low-power MSP430 microcontrollers and SN65HVD17xx family can be used together to create a low-power solution for a single control node. The SN65HVD17xx family contributes to TI's broad interface product offering, which includes families of products for M-LVDS, LVDS, CAN, I2C, ESD, RS-485, RS-232 and PCI-Express standards. Please see www.ti.com/interface for more information.

Availability

The SN65HVD17xx family is available online today. Details and suggested resale pricing are listed below for each device in 1000-piece quantities. Samples are available at www.ti.com/sn65hvd1794-pr.