Realtek and Rohde & Schwarz Joins Forces to Lead the Way in Automotive Ethernet

Munich, Germany – Rohde & Schwarz, a leading global test and measurement company, is partnering with the automotive chipset development team of Realtek, one of the world’s foremost network and multimedia fabless IC design companies to ensure compliance with current and future OPEN Alliance standards. The R&S RTO2044 digital oscilloscope’s performance and ease of measurement are important considerations for R&D engineers.

Developments in advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) and enhanced infotainment applications necessitate an evolution of in-vehicle communications to support the higher data rates required. Automotive Ethernet is a critical enabler for automotive communications because it is a future-proof technology that currently supports speeds of up to 10Gbps. Compliance with the stringent automotive Ethernet specifications defined by the industry body OPEN Alliance, on the other hand, must first be verified. Realtek has spent a long-time developing communication network and computer peripheral products, as well as multimedia IC design. Product validation is required prior to the release of a new product to the market, and high-performance test instruments and fixtures from Rohde & Schwarz provide the necessary performance to validate compliance with the standards.

With the RTL9010 (1000BASE-T1 PHY) chipset, Realtek has entered the OPEN Alliance (OA) TC12 market, which supports the OA TC10 Wake-up/Sleep. The RTL9010 is the industry’s first and one of only a few AEC-Q100 Grade 1 chipsets in the world, with power consumption as low as 400mW, saving materials costs and significantly reducing power consumption via a built-in switching regulator. It also supports 12V/24V VBAT power supplies.

With the OPEN Alliance’s stringent requirements for MDI Mode conversion, test fixture design is the first and foremost measurement challenge for R&D engineers. Rohde & Schwarz was the first to design a compatible SMA connector for the fixture of the object to be tested, significantly shortening the lead time required by developers to overcome this challenge. The R&S RTO2044 oscilloscope includes a fast and real-time FFT function that enables users to easily perform the Transmitter Power Spectral Density (PSD) tests of the OA TC1 (IEEE 802.3bw 100BASE-T1) and OA TC12 (IEEE 802.3bp 1000BASE-T1) Test 97.1.4 specifications on the oscilloscope without the use of additional spectrum analyzers. The R&S RTO2044 also has a built-in arbitrary waveform generator to support Test 97.1.2 Transmitter Distortion tests that require a noise generator. The OA TC12 test standardizes the OA TC9 MDI Test Head’s environmental testing. The R&S ZNB vector network analyzer, with its outstanding dynamic range and unparalleled precision, complies with the stringent testing requirements of the OA TC9 UTP Longitudinal Conversion Loss and Longitudinal Conversion Transfer Loss: -61dB (frequency 10-80MHz).

Realtek and Rohde & Schwarz have jointly invested resources into the development of products that meet the OPEN Alliance’s TC1 and TC12 standards. Furthermore, they are also actively deploying resources into the highly-anticipated TC15 (MultiGBASE-T1) market, the standards and specifications of which the OPEN Alliance is currently working on. Through the partnership, Realtek and Rohde & Schwarz are set to lead the way in automotive Ethernet.

Yee-Wei Huang, Vice President and Spokesman, Realtek, said, “The performance and ease of measurement of the R&S RTO2044 oscilloscope and R&S ZNB vector network analyzer are important considerations for our R&D engineers, given the fact that these two instruments are references at UNH-IOL, an Automotive Ethernet laboratory accredited by OPEN Alliance.”

Image Source: Rohde & Schwarz GmbH & Co KG

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