NEC Electronics targets industrial automation systems with Ethernet PHY development

Julien Happich

EE Times Europe (11/27/2009 4:18 AM ET)

CAMBRIDGE, UK — NEC Electronics is working on a new family of industrial Ethernet physical layers (PHYs) for 10Base-T and 100Base-TX/FX industrial-grade networks.

The new PHYs yet to be mass-produced in Q3 of 2010, will realize best-in-class high-speed industrial connectivity and advanced cable diagnostics, and are optimized for existing industrial Ethernet protocols used in industrial automation products.

Industrial Ethernet has consistently ramped up over the last years and now reaches a wider use in automation systems throughout the industry. The new PHYs address the expanding and unique needs of system designers of industrial automation market to interconnect industrial controllers from different manufacturers throughout a process plant.

As well as enabling low node latency, delivering high-speed data transmission and reception without failure, the devices will feature advanced cable monitoring and diagnostic features, based on a time domain reflectometry (TDR) function.

Another feature of this new development is time stamping of transmitted and received packets, enabling continuous and automatic process where the clock differences are noted and automatically adjusted.

The PHYs will be compatible with standard industrial Ethernet communication protocols such as EtherNet/IP, SERCOS III, EtherCAT or Profinet. They will also be compliant with IEEE802.3 and qualified for robust industrial environments.

More information on the company's website