ALi Introduces Super I/O and Mega I/O Controllers Available Now in High-Volume; Offer enhanced features, competitively priced for the mainstream market.

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 3, 1996--Acer Laboratories Inc. (ALi) today announced the introduction of its new M5113 Super I/O Controller and M512X Mega I/O controller for the mainstream PC market.

Both ICs offer easy design-in and support Windows 95 Plug-and-Play as well as plug and play for ECP, Serial Ports and Parallel Ports. The two new controller ICs are similar, but the M512X adds a Real-Time Clock, Keyboard Controller, and General Purpose Input Output Pins (GPIOS).

According to ALi's Vice President of Marketing and Sales, Nancy Hartsoch, "We have designed a family of I/O controllers which allow for maximum flexibility and the highest possible quality at very competitive prices. We feel that these devices will shorten design cycle times due to their relative simplicity, and will allow for a much quicker revenue stream for the PC manufacturers who use them."

FDC Controller

Both devices will support FDC (Floppy Disc Controller) through parallel port pins. This facilitates floppy disk support in notebook computers which don't have the board space for a full-scale floppy disk controller. Full floppy disk FDC support is also available which is software compatible with 82077 and supports 16-byte data FIFOs. The FDC also contains a high-performance data separator which eliminates the need for external filter components. The FDC supports 3.5" floppies in three densities: 720K, 1.2 Meg, 1.44 Meg, 2.88 Meg and provides for swappable drives A and B.

Serial Port Controller

Serial port control is facilitated through the use of two high-performance 16550 compatible UARTs with send/receive 16-byte FIFOs. The chips contain an on-board baud-rate generator which is programmable up to 230K and 460K baud. The serial ports are also configurable for wireless communications using Serial Infrared (SIR) and Amplitude Shift Keyed IR (ASKIR). Midi support is provided as is IR support for UART1 and UART2 or two additional IR pins (with S/W control). The serial controller supports serial port Plug-n-Play (PnP) specifications.

Parallel Port Controller

The multi-mode parallel port controller is a bi-directional parallel port which is compatible with IBM PC/XT specifications as well as PC/AT, and PS/2 in standard mode. In enhanced mode, the controllers support Enhanced Parallel Port (EPP) and in high-speed mode, they support Parallel port PnP with a minimum of 3 IRQs up to all IRQs (under SIRQII).

The devices support both Microsoft and Hewlett Packard Extended Capabilities Port (ECP). Both devices support ECP plug and play for DRQ1/DACK1 or DRQ3/DACK3 and PDIR for 1284 level-2 compliance. The parallel pins include protection circuitry to guard against damage from "hot plugging" of parallel devices (such as printer) and ESD (Electro-Static Discharge).

Both devices provide high performance power management for the FDC, the UARTs and the parallel ports.

Additional Features for the M512X Series

The M512X contains all of the above mentioned features plus it has a Real-Time Clock on-board, a Keyboard Controller, and General Purpose Input Output Pins (GPIOS) to control devices. The M5123 supports the Phoenix Keyboard Controller Code and the M5125 version supports the AMI Keyboard Controller protocols.

Pricing and Availability

The M5113 is priced at $4.50 and the M512X is $7 in 10K/month quantities. Both chips are available now. The M5113 is packaged in a 100-lead PQFP, and the M512X is supplied in a 160-lead PQFP package. The M5113 and M512X are fabricated in a 0.6 micron CMOS process.

About ALi

ALi (Acer Laboratories Inc.), founded in 1987, is a member company of the Acer Group and is headquartered in Taipei, Taiwan. Since its establishment, ALi has provided highly integrated, cost-effective and innovative IC products to support personal computer system and subsystem manufacturers.

ALi is not only one of the world's oldest and largest system core logic manufacturers, but is also a world-class provider of other PC peripheral products, such as graphics and multimedia chips, super I/O controllers, CD-ROM controllers, and IDE disk interfaces.

With more than 100 design engineers, most with advanced degrees, ALi is capable of developing a wide range of products to support a variety of CPUs, including the X86 families up through 64-bit CPUs such as the Pentium, M1, K5 and RISC processors such as the R4000/4600, as well as the industry standard buses including VESA Local (VL), PCI, and ISA.

The company employs 205 people and had revenues of $85 million in 1995. ALi supports its products in the North American market through its advance engineering center in San Jose.

CONTACT: Acer Laboratories Inc. (ALi), San Jose

Nancy Hartsoch, 408/467-7450

or

Cain Communications

Mark Alden, 408/291-2586

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