NEC Corporation and NEC Electronics Corporation have announced the development of a super-fast serial interface circuit technology, an essential component of system chips having large-scale integration (LSI) and used in next-generation broadband networks and high-speed computers. The new technology enables data transmission of 12 gigabits per second (Gb/s) between LSI chips, or between equipment employing LSI chips. This transmission rate is three to four times faster than conventional transmission rates in current high-end servers or routers, despite the use of legacy printed board traces, wires or cables. This rate is also five times faster than the PCI Express standard popularly used for high-speed transmission in personal computers.

The new technology employs a duobinary transmission technique, conventionally used for several hundred megabits-per-second (Mb/s) communication in a hard disk drive, which can be applied to high-speed electrical transmissions greater than 10 Gb/s because of the following two NEC-developed technologies.