Broadcom Corporation

Avago Technologies General IP (singapore) Pte. Ltd.

Bruce Howard Conway

Scott R Powell

Mehmet Vakif Tazebay

Minshine Shih

Peiqing Wang

Ali Abaye

Seyed Hamidi

Mark Berman

Manolito Catalasan

Sang Bui

Kuang-Chou Chang

Kevin Tunghai Chan

Ahmad Chini

Christopher Michael Ward

Derek Tam

Frank Van Der Goes

Magesh Valliappan

Santanu Sinha

Ovidiu Bajdechi

Lin Zheng

The present disclosure provides an apparatus and method for measuring echo responses of communication links used in in-vehicle networks with high resolution and high dynamic range, allowing for diagnostics of various failures and/or degradations with high precision. Additional information can be provided to indicate signaling quality, insertion loss, and return loss of the communication links used in in-vehicle networks. Together, these measures and information can provide a comprehensive diagnostic capability that improves network reliability and safety of in-vehicle networks.

Comprehensive high resolution cable diagnostics for in-vehicle Ethernet PHYs

Aspects of a method and system for an extended range copper transceiver are provided. Reducing the communication rate provided by multi-rate physical (PHY) layer operations in an Ethernet transceiver may extend the range of the Ethernet transceiver over twisted-pair copper cabling from a standard connection length. The Ethernet transceiver may support up to 1 Gbps or up to 10 Gbps transmission rate over copper cabling. The multi-rate PHY layer architecture in the Ethernet transceiver may support signal-processing operations, such as echo cancellation and/or equalization, which may be applied to the reduced communication rate to enable range extension. The reduced communication rate may be achieved by reducing the symbol rate provided by the multi-rate PHY layer operations. Reducing the communication rate may also enable utilizing greater insertion loss cabling for a standard connection length.

Method and system for extended reach copper transceiver

Aspects of a method and system for extended range Ethernet link discovery signaling are provided. A local PHY may detect of one or more active twisted-pair wires in a remote PHY in extended range applications. The local PHY may determine whether to operate as a master or slave based on detected pairs. When operating as a master device, the local PHY may correct twisted-pair wire swap information received from the remote PHY before communicating an encoded link length value to the remote PHY. When operating as a slave device, the local PHY may transmit encoded twisted-pair wire swap information to the remote PHY before recovering a link length value communicated from the remote PHY. The local PHY may communicate supported operating modes based on the link length value to the remote PHY. Moreover, the local PHY may enable establishing a common full duplex operating mode with the remote PHY.

Method and system for an extended range ethernet link discovery signaling

Communication devices coupled via a communication link may comprise physical layer devices that may be operable to determine presence of a received signal and to mitigate noise in the signal prior to processing and/or validating the signal. Analog and/or digital signal processing may be utilized to process the signal and/or mitigate noise in the signal. Noise mitigation may comprise near-end crosstalk cancelling and/or echo cancelling and/or may utilize local transmit signal information. Subsequent to noise mitigation, samples of the noise reduced signal may be accumulated and/or an average signal strength and/or average signal power level may be determined. The average signal strength and/or average signal power level may be compared to one or more thresholds which may be configurable and/or programmable.

Method and system for a combined signal detection for physical layer communication devices

A method and system to dynamically manager power in a communication system are provided herein. The method comprises the steps of monitoring a transmit data queue once every first pre-determined period of time and determining whether the transmit data queue is empty for a pre-determined number of times. The method further includes the step of generating a transition state signal to stop de-queuing of data from the transmit queue if the transmit data queue is empty for the pre-determined number of times and selectively operating portions of a Physical Layer (PHY) that are used for functions other than transmitting and receiving an idle signal in a low power mode.

System and method for selectively placing portions of a physical layer into low power mode

A method and a system for accurately calculating the timing margin in a clock and data recovery system (CDR) is provided that utilizes a singular path environment of hardware. The method entails adding an amount of jitter within the CDR to change the receiver phase. The amount of jitter is incrementally increased until a threshold level of bit errors occur. Based on the amount of jitter needed to cause the threshold level of bit errors, timing margin can be calculated.

Apparatus and method to measure timing margin in clock and data recovery system utilizing a jitter stressor

A programmable channel-swap crossbar switch for swapping signal flow from one channel to another within an Ethernet physical layer device (PHY) is presented. The crossbar switch includes two or more programmed multiplexers, each multiplexer configured to receive two or more input signals and to select which one of the input signals to pass to a programmed corresponding channel, such that a first input signal associated with a first channel can be swapped to a second channel as operating conditions necessitate. The crossbar switch can be used for Ethernet communications with various communication speeds, such as 10BaseT, 100BaseT, and Gigabit communications. A crossbar switch can be used in both a transmit path and a receive path. Two crossbar switches may be used in a receive path in order to undo channel swapping for control signal processing. A method of channel-swapping in an Ethernet PHY communications system is also presented.

Full channel-swap crossbar

A system includes at least one adaptive filter coupled to a first communication channel and at least one other communications channel. The at least one adaptive filter includes at least one set of adaptive filter coefficients. A memory stores at least one predetermined set of filter coefficient thresholds. The filter coefficient thresholds may be indicative of channel faults, channel to channel faults or a length of the channel. A controller is configured to compare the set of filter coefficients to the predetermined set of filter coefficient thresholds. The controller is configured to determine the information about the channels based on compare results.

Channel diagnostic systems and methods

Aspects of a method and system for a power reduction scheme for Ethernet PHYs are provided. An Ethernet PHY in a link partner may disable transmission via a transmit DAC integrated during an inactive connection, 10Base-T autonegotiation operation, and/or active 10Base-T connection with no data packet transmission. The DAC may be a voltage mode or current mode DAC. The PHY or a MAC device may determine when to disable transmission via the DAC. In this regard, the PHY or the MAC device may generate appropriate signals for disabling the transmission. The DAC may be enabled for transmission by the PHY or the MAC device when a connection becomes active or when an active 10Base-T connection is ready to transmit data. Moreover, the PHY may enable transmission via the DAC when operating in a forced 10Base-T mode of operation and the connection to the link partner is active.

Method and system for a power reduction scheme for Ethernet PHYs

Aspects of a method and system for low power IDLE signal transmission in Ethernet networks are provided. In this regard, during time periods between transmissions of actual data by a local Ethernet link partner, the local Ethernet Link partner may generate one or more signals, in place of a standard Ethernet IDLE signal, that enable synchronization between Ethernet link partners. In this manner, the generated signals may enable reducing power consumption as compared to standard Ethernet IDLE signals. Accordingly, link activity may be monitored to enable detecting periods when there may be no actual data for transmission and the generated signals may be transmitted. The generated signals may be transmitted at a reduced symbol rate as compared to standard Ethernet IDLE signals. The generated signals may be transmitted via fewer network links as compared to standard Ethernet IDLE signals.

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Aliso Viejo, CA, United States of America

Bruce Howard Conway