Automotive Ethernet Test Solutions from Rohde & Schwarz Accelerate Realtek’s Entry Into the Automotive Market

January 28, 2022

Press Release

Rohde & Schwarz, a leading global test & 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 performance and ease of measurement of the R&S RTO2044 digital oscilloscope are important considerations for R&D engineers.

Developments in advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) and enhanced infotainment applications require an evolution of in-vehicle communications to support the required higher data rates. Automotive Ethernet is a key enabler for automotive communications since it is a future proof technology, currently supporting speeds up to 10Gbps. However, compliance with the stringent automotive Ethernet specifications defined by industry body OPEN Alliance must first be verified. Realtek has dedicated itself for a long time to the development of communication network and computer peripheral products as well as multimedia IC design. Product validation must be conducted before the new product is released to the market and this is where high-performance test instruments and fixtures from Rohde & Schwarz provide the necessary performance to validate compliance with the standards.

“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”, said Realtek’s Vice President and Spokesman, Yee-Wei Huang.

Realtek has entered the OPEN Alliance (OA) TC12 market with the RTL9010 (1000BASE-T1 PHY) chipset, which supports the OA TC10 Wake-up/Sleep. The RTL9010 is the industry's first and one of very few AECQ100 Grade 1 chipsets in the world, with power consumption as low as 400mW, saving materials cost and significantly reducing power consumption through built-in switching regulator. It also supports 12V/24V VBAT power supply.

With the stringent requirements for MDI Mode conversion defined by the OPEN Alliance, 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, thus significantly reducing the lead time required by developers to overcome this challenge. The R&S RTO2044 oscilloscope features a fast and realtime FFT function that allows 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 need for additional spectrum analyzers. The R&S RTO2044 also has a built-in arbitrary waveform generator to support Test 97.1.2 Transmitter Distortion tests which require a noise generator. The OA TC12 test standardizes the environmental testing of the OA TC9 MDI Test Head. 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 10MHz to 80MHz).

Realtek and Rohde & Schwarz have jointly invested resources into the development of products that meet the TC1 and TC12 standards set by the OPEN Alliance. 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.