TL16C552A, TL16C552AM DUAL ASYNCHRONOUS COMMUNICATIONS ELEMENT WITH FIFO

The TL16C552A is an enhanced dual-channel version of the popular TL16C550B asynchronous
communications element (ACE). The device serves two serial input/output interfaces simultaneously in
microcomputer or microprocessor-based systems. Each channel performs serial-to-parallel conversion on data
characters received from peripheral devices or modems and parallel-to-serial conversion on data characters
transmitted by the CPU. The complete status of each channel of the dual ACE can be read at any time during
functional operation by the CPU. The information obtained includes the type and condition of the transfer
operations being performed and the error conditions encountered.
In addition to its dual communications interface capabilities, the TL16C552A provides the user with a
bidirectional parallel data port that fully supports the parallel Centronics-type printer interface. The parallel port
and the two serial ports provide IBM PC/AT-compatible computers with a single device to serve the three system
ports. A programmable baud rate generator that can divide the timing reference clock input by a divisor between
1 and (216 – 1) is included.