On Tue, Feb 07, 2006 at 10:55:05AM -0500, Dave McGuire wrote: > On Feb 7, 2006, at 10:36 AM, Randall Nortman wrote: > >I apologize that this has nothing to do with gEDA, but you folks have > >been very helpful with this sort of question before. I would like to > >add a modem capability (telephone line, not broadband) to my embedded > >microcontroller device. I could connect an external modem to a serial > >port, but that's an expensive and bulky solution. I'm sure there are > >chipsets out there for doing this sort of thing -- just a chip that > >talks to a UART (or I2C/SPI) on one side and talks to the phone line > >on the other, and handles as much of the dialing and negotiation > >process on its own as possible. Preferrably, it would require a > >minimum of external components, and be cheap. I'm not particularly > >concerned about speed, though 24kbps or better would be good. > >Through-hole or SMT is fine. Any ideas? > > I know Rockwell makes one, and Cermetek has made encapsulated modem > modules for years but I've not seen either of them for quite a while. > The one that jumps out at me right now is the modem line from Zilog. > More info can be found here: > > http://www.zilog.com/products/family.asp?fam=206
The Zilog chips are only 2400bps, which is OK I suppose. More importantly, nobody seems to stock them, and the minimum order quantity is 100+. Anybody know how to get these in smaller quantities? Rockwell seems to now be called Conexant, but I can't find a distributor for them, at least not with a quick search. I'm guessing they do large volume only. Cermetek looks interesting, but nobody seems to carry them. (They claim Arrow and All American do, but I can't find any Cermetek stuff in their online catalogs.) Their pricing seems to be on the order of $50+ per unit, which is outrageous. I can buy an external RS232 modem for less than that. Thanks, Randall
