1/8 Unit Load, 5V, Low Power, High Speed or Slew Rate Limited, RS-485/RS-422
Transceivers
These RS-485/RS-422 devices are “fractional” unit
load (UL), BiCMOS, 5V powered, single transceivers that
meet both the RS-485 and RS-422 standards for balanced
communication. The ISL81483 and ISL81487 present a 1/8 unit load to the
RS-485 bus, which allows up to 256 transceivers on the
network for large node count systems (e.g., process
automation, remote meter reading systems). The 1/4 UL
ISL8487 allows up to 128 transceivers on the bus. In a
remote utility meter reading system, individual (apartments
for example) utility meter readings are routed to a
concentrator via an RS-485 network, so the high allowed
node count minimizes the number of repeaters required to
network all the meters. Data for all meters is then read out
from the concentrator via a single access port, or a wireless
link