News & Events
Xicor Announces Industry's Lowest Cost Digitally Controlled Potentiometer
-- Xicor smashes previous price barrier, enabling replacement of trimmers in large volume applications
Milpitas, California, September 21, 1999 - Xicor, the industry leader in digitally controlled potentiometers (DCPs), today announced a 32 tap product aimed at replacing low-cost, single turn trimmers and potentiometers. The X9015, which can be programmed by a microcontroller via a simple up/down interface, is ideal for high volume applications, such as cell phones and personal digital assistants (PDAs), that traditionally required variable resistance but at a low cost. The X9015 is the first DCP to be priced at the low $0.25 price point, which is well below any current DCP.
The X9015 consists of 31 equal resistor segments that connect to the wiper through CMOS switches from each node in the resistor string. The wiper connection point is determined by a digital code that is transmitted to the device through the 3-wire up/down serial port. A simple increment command causes the wiper to move one position up or down based on the voltage level on the up/down pin.
"By replacing mechanical trimmers with the X9015, system designers will benefit from its electronic programmability and solid state reliability, and will also do away with the negative cost-ofownership issues of mechanical devices, said Paul Standish, director of Xicor's analog product line.
"The X9015 is particularly suited for very low cost applications where designs do not require devices to power up into pre-programmed states. These applications typically have resident microcontrollers that actively control the wiper position during operation and have the ability to preset the resistance value during the power up phase of operation. For such applications, nonvolatility is not required for the DCP. The absence of such high functionality lowers manufacturing costs and positions the X9015 as the industry's lowest cost DCP," he said.
The X9015 complements Xicor's industry leading product family that includes a broad resolution ranging from 16 to 256 taps, support for three industry standard interfaces, operation from single or dual voltage supply and modularity of single, dual or quad potentiometers all contained in one plastic, surface-mounted package.
Availability and Price
The X9015 is available in 8 pin SOIC and MSOP packages with a total end-to-end resistance of 50kohm. The price at the 10,000 piece level for the X9015US in SOIC packaging is $.25. The parts are sampling now. Production quantities will be available in October 1999.
Reader Contact
Paul Standish, director, analog products, Xicor, Inc., 1511 Buckeye Drive, Milpitas, CA 95035. Telephone: (408) 546-3492. E-mail: pstandis@xicor.com Web site: www.xicor.com.
Company Background
Xicor, Inc. designs, develops, manufactures and sells nonvolatile in-the-system programmable products which retain information even when the system is turned off or power is inadvertently lost. Xicor's product line includes digitally controlled potentiometers (XDCPs), system management ICs, and standard and secure memory ICs .
Xicor product, corporate and financial information is readily accessible on the worldwide web at http://www.xicor.com.
