Latest Test and Measurement News

Call for Beta Testers for Non-Intrusive PAM3 Automotive Ethernet Protocol Decoder

04 July 2019 - The increasing use of ECUs in vehicles, and advanced signal processing, is driving the need for high performance automotive networks. 100BASE-T1 / BroadR-Reach has emerged as the physical layer standard for automotive applications. It uses PAM3 signalling on a differential twisted pair to give good performance and noise immunity for a reasonable cost.

Full duplex PAM3 overlaid signals on a single line are readable by the transceivers at each end as they both know the contribution of their own signal and are able to reconstruct the incoming signal received out of the sum. But external monitoring, test and analysis of full duplex signals normally requires insertion of a hardware directional coupler to separate up- and down-stream traffic, which adds test complexity and impacts on the characteristics of the network under test.

Pico Technology are preparing to introduce the industry’s first non-intrusive full duplex automotive Ethernet protocol decoder, analyzer and measurement system. It will run on any PicoScope model with a bandwidth of 200 MHz and above: PicoScope 3000, 5000 and 6000 Series instruments.

Ahead of the formal launch, Pico are inviting engineers who are currently working on 100BASE-T1 / BroadR-Reach automotive networks to participate in the Beta test program. Selected participants will be provided with PicoScope 6 software that includes the new Automotive Ethernet analysis functionality, with a loan of suitable PicoScope hardware if the user does not already have it.

Participants will be asked to rate the system with scores for usability, functionality and performance, as well as suggestions for future development of the technology.

To join the Beta test program and/or register your interest in the product when it is launched, please contact Pico Technology.

www.picotech.com