Ethernet Circuit (internal)

Hilscher has a long-standing history in the development and design of advanced IEEE 802.3 compliant industrial grade components, products and solutions for the factory automation market. Over the past years, Hilscher built a broad database with test suites for compliance and interoperability tests and developed specific tools for network analysis and penetration tests since real-time Ethernet imposes additionally special requirements on IEEE 802.3 compliant physical layers such as low latency, low jitter, etc.

Hilscher performs IEEE 802.3(u) testing at chip levels and board levels, which include among others:

Specific Ethernet and standard NXHX boards for design validation and verification tasks and compliance and interoperability tests
Fee-based testing services offered by the InterOperability Laboratory (IOL), one of the leading institutions for Fast Ethernet testing

Click here to learn more about IOL at UNH...

The University of New Hampshire InterOperability Laboratory (UNH-IOL) is an independent test facility that provides interoperability and standards conformance testing for networking, telecommunications, data storage, and consumer technology products. The objectives of the UNH-IOL are to provide a long-term independent facility where products including Ethernet products can be tested in a heterogeneous environment operating outside of normal Ethernet design limits.

Companies pay an annual consortium membership fee and donate at least one of the products that they wish to test to the IOL. The requirement to leave a platform at the IOL allows the users of the lab to perform interoperability testing with current equipment throughout the year and without having to make special legal arrangements with other players in the technology. This becomes one of the major benefits of consortium membership: the ability to test against other vendors' products in a neutral setting without having to incur the capital expense of setting up and operating individual vendor test facilities. Consortiums within the IOL use the same facilities and tools, and thus are able to build on each other’s work. By using this simple cooperative approach, the IOL has quietly built an extensive interoperability test environment, kept costs to a minimum, and provided for incremental growth through new consortiums.

Source: https://www.iol.unh.edu/

Compliance tests:

The ANSI X3.263 and IEEE 802.3 standards define an array of compliance tests.

Click here to see tabulated compliance tests...

Physical Layer	Conformance Test	Brief Description
10BaseT	Clause 4 10BASE-T MAC Test Suite	This test suite deals with Reception issues such as CRC Errors, Framing Errors, Length Errors, Fragments, etc. as well as Transmission issues, proper spacing, proper preamble and SFD. For Half Duplex devices this also includes collisions, deference, etc. This suite of tests has been developed to help implementers evaluate the functioning of their Clause 4 Media Access Control (MAC) based products.
10BaseT	Clause 14 10BASE-Te Embedded MAU Conformance Test Suite	This test suite deals with 10BASE-Te Physical Layer testing, amplitude, timing, template fit, etc. This suite of tests has been developed to help implementers evaluate the functioning of their Clause 14 Medium Attachment Unit, Type 10BASE-Te based products.
100BaseTX	Clause 4 10BASE-T MAC Test Suite	This test suite deals with Reception issues such as CRC Errors, Framing Errors, Length Errors, Fragments, etc. as well as Transmission issues, proper spacing, proper preamble and SFD, For Half Duplex devices this also includes collisions, deference, etc. This suite of tests has been developed to help implementers evaluate the functioning of their Clause 4 Media Access Control (MAC) based products. The tests do not determine if a product conforms to the IEEE 802.3, nor are they purely interoperability tests. Rather, they provide one method to isolate problems within a MAC device. Successful completion of all tests contained in this suite does not guarantee that the tested device will operate with other devices. However, combined with satisfactory operation in the IOL's interoperability test bed, these tests provide a reasonable level of confidence that the Device Under Test (DUT) will function well in most environments.
	Clause 24 100BASE-X PCS Test Suite	This suite of tests has been developed to help implementers evaluate the functioning of their Clause 24 Physical Coding Sublayer (PCS) based products. The tests do not determine if a product conforms to the IEEE 802.3, nor are they purely interoperability tests. Rather, they provide one method to isolate problems within a PCS. Successful completion of all tests contained in this suite does not guarantee that the tested device will operate with other devices. However, combined with satisfactory operation in the IOL's interoperability test bed, these tests provide a reasonable level of confidence that the Device Under Test (DUT) will function well in most environments.
	Clause 25 100BASE-TX PMD-EEE Test Suite	This suite of tests verifies the PMD sublayer of a 100BASE-TX device capable of Energy Efficient operation. Here, various transmit and receive electrical signaling tests are defined. The current version of the test suite is written to P802.3az-D3.1.
	Clause 28 Auto-Negotiation State Machine Test Suite	This suite of tests has been developed to help implementers evaluate the functioning of their Clause 28 Auto-Negotiation based products. The tests do not determine if a product conforms to the IEEE 802.3 Standard, nor are they purely interoperability tests. Rather, they provide one method to isolate problems within an auto-negotiating device. Successful completion of all tests contained in this suite does not guarantee that the tested device will operate with other auto-negotiating devices. However, combined with satisfactory operation in the IOL's interoperability test bed, these tests provide a reasonable level of confidence that the Device Under Test (DUT) will function well in most auto-negotiating environments.
	Clause 40 Auto-Crossover Test Suite	This suite of tests has been developed to help implementers evaluate the functioning of their Clause 22, Clause 28, and Clause 40 Auto-Negotiation based products. The tests do not determine if a product conforms to the IEEE 802.3, nor are they purely interoperability tests. Rather, they provide one method to isolate problems within an Auto-Negotiating device. Successful completion of all tests contained in this suite does not guarantee that the tested device will operate with other Auto-Negotiating devices. However, combined with satisfactory operation in the IOL's interoperability test bed, these tests provide a reasonable level of confidence that the Device Under Test (DUT) will function well in most Auto-Negotiating environments.

Premium manufacturers and suppliers of oscilloscopes offer add-on software packages for compliance testing at board levels. Hilscher uses the test solution QPHY-ENET from LeCroy, which is an automated test package that performs electrical tests for 10Base-T and 100Base-TX signals as specified in the IEEE 802.3-2005 and ANSI X3.263-1995 standards.

LeCroy's QualiPHY automated test software creates detailed test reports for compliance testing:

	File	Modified

Notes:

14.3.1.2.1 Differential Output Voltage Harmonics 18.4 dB x >= 27.0 dB is uncritical. See Errata netX 90.

Interoperability tests:

In addition to interoperability tests at the IOL with as many link partners as outlined in the test report, Hilscher performs further interoperability tests at different cable lengths and with different cable types that have a worse attenuation characteristic than as required by the industry norm.

Click here to see IOL interoperability tests...

Interoperability Test

Brief Description

IOL Ethernet Interoperability Test Suite

This suite of tests has been developed to help implementers identify problems that IEEE 802.3 devices may have in establishing link and exchanging packets with each other. The tests do not determine if a product conforms to the IEEE 802.3 standard. Rather, they provide one method to verify that the two devices can exchange packets within the bit error ratio specifications established by the IEEE 802.3 standard when operating over a worst-case compliant channel. The interoperability test suite focuses on two areas of functionality to simulate a real-world environment: the exchange of packets to produce a packet error ratio that is low enough to meet a desired bit error ratio, and the ability to detect and establish a link at the optimal speed between two devices that make up a link segment.

	File	Modified

Click here to see Hilscher interoperability tests...

LP-PHY	DUT NXHX 90-JTAG
Micrel KSZ8081MNX	20611	0
National DP83640TVV	20611	0
NEC internal PHY	20607	1
Broadcom BCM5325A2KQM
Broadcom BCM53125
Realtek RTL8305SB	20614	2
Marvel 88E6060
NEC internal PHY
Realtek 8309SB	20615	3
Renesas internal PHY	20615	3
Micrel KSZ8993M	20616	4
Broadcom BCM5221	20616	4
Siemens SPNC020E20	20612	5
Micrel KSZ8993M	20155	6