SMSC became a major player in the market for MOST (Media Oriented Systems Transport) components in March 2005 when it acquired Oasis Silicon Systems. Since then it’s sold MOST chips and licensed a number of firms to use its MediaLB interface technology for connecting to MOST networks.

Now it’s come out with a MOST50 family of products said to operate on MOST networks at 50Mb/s versus 25Mb/s and to run on unshielded twisted pair (UTP) copper wires versus plastic optical fiber (POF).

MOST is popular among European automakers as an effective network protocol for infotainment applications but it hasn’t gained much traction in the U.S., where cost is a primary concern. It’s facing competition from IDB-1394 – automotive grade FireWire.

Most if not all MOST networks in Europe use plastic optical fiber (POF), but U.S. automotive design engineers wanted to see it available on UTP, so MOST Cooperation developed a copper wire spec (ePhy) that U.S. OEMs are currently testing.

SMSC says that until now, UTP performance topped out at 1Mb/s because of the radiation-sensitive environment of cars in production today. With ePHY, OEMs can achieve 50Mb/s while continuing to use existing electrical cables and connectors.