Communication ICs: The digital evolution in telephony continues: A signal processor furthers distributed switching and monolithic SLICs decrease component count

While the trend of incorporating more features in communication integrated circuits continued unabated last year, other significant steps were taken to move the integrated services digital network (ISDN) closer to reality. The network, long a visionary plan of the world's major telephone companies, would give each customer in a network a “digital pipe” through which bits would be transmitted to meet all voice, data, and video requirements.