NEC Electronics has developed a family of industrial Ethernet PHYs (physical layers) for 10Base-T and 100Base-TX/FX. The new PHYs offer better high-speed industrial connectivity and advanced cable diagnostics, and are optimised for existing industrial Ethernet protocols used in industrial automation products. The PHYs are suitable for system designers in the industrial automation market to interconnect industrial controllers from different manufacturers throughout a process plant. The new PHYs enable low node latency, delivering high-speed data transmission and reception. With a powerful link control, the PHYs provide high-speed link-up and link-down control mechanism. This feature is suitable for robotics that requires fast link-up and link-down control. The PHYs enable consistent cable quality monitoring for easy maintenance, and support easy repair during the maintenance cycle. The cable diagnostic feature is based on the TDR (time domain reflectometer) function that determines and localises cable problems.
With the time stamping of transmitted and received packets, the PHYs provide better timing precision by enabling continuous and automatic process where the clock differences are noted and automatically adjusted. The time stamping of transmitted and received packets allows designers to determine the difference between clock frequencies and correct for them achieving real-time performance.
The PHYs are compatible with standard industrial Ethernet communication protocols such as EtherNet/IP, SERCOS III, EtherCAT or Profinet. They are also compliant with IEEE802.3 and qualify for industrial environments. The PHYs enhance the company's other Ethernet-based product offerings such as V850 Ethernet-based MCUs (microcontrollers). ASSPs and ASICs are also available as embeddable macros for these products.
