Electrical transceiver for synchronous ethernet

• US 9,942,025 B2
• Filed: 04/01/2016
• Issued: 04/10/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 10/18/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Aimvalley B.V., Oe Solutions Co., Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Aimvalley B.V., Oe Solutions Co., Ltd.
• Inventors: Bosch, Willem Van Den, Schipper, Niels
• Primary Examiner(s): Garcia, Santiago
• Application Number:
  US15/088,121
• Publication Number:
  US 20160218855A1
• Time in Patent Office: 739 Days
• Field of Search: 375219
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 1/38 Transceivers, i.e. devices in which transmitter and receiver form a structural unit and in which at least one part is used for functions of transmitting and receiving
• CPC Class Codes: H04J 3/0667 Bidirectional timestamps, e.g. NTP or PTP for compensation of clock drift and for compensation of propagation delays arrangements for monitoring round trip delays in packet switching networks H04L43/0864
• CPC Class Codes: H04J 3/0673 using intermediate nodes, e.g. modification of a received timestamp before further transmission to the next packet node, e.g. including internal delay time or residence time into the packet
• CPC Class Codes: H04J 3/0697 Synchronisation in a packet node
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/40006 Architecture of a communication node current supply arrangements H04L12/10; intermediate storage or scheduling H04L49/90
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 7/0033 Correction by delay

Abstract

Disclosed is an electrical transceiver for synchronous Ethernet, including: a first interface connected with a host; a second interface including a physical layer (PHY) transceiver connected with a serial link; and a processor connected with the first interface and the second interface, wherein the processor includes a timing control unit controlling a transmission signal transmitted to the second interface from the first interface and a reception signal transmitted to the first interface from the second interface to have the same time delay.

Claims

1. A method of synchronous Ethernet communications to be implemented in an electrical transceiver including a first interface coupled to a host device and a second interface including a physical layer transceiver coupled to a serial link, the method comprising:

frequency synchronizing, in a physical layer of the electrical transceiver, without using a higher layer protocol, a first signal received from the second interface to a frequency extracted from a second signal that is received from the first interface, so as to make a time delay of the first signal equal to a time delay of the second signal,

wherein the frequency synchronizing comprises controlling the first signal and the second signal through a first buffer and a second buffer of a delay equalizer such that the first signal and the second signal have a same time delay, by controlling buffering speeds of the first buffer and the second buffer based on a delay difference.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the delay difference is determined by an expression:

{fixed_RX_serdes+N×

K nano-seconds+fixed_TX_PHY}={fixed_TX_serdes+fixed_EQ_delay+fixed_RX_PHY},

where fixed_RX_serdes represents a delay rate of an encoding unit in a serial/parallel converter, fixed_TX_PHY represents a delay rate of a transmission unit in the physical layer transceiver, fixed_TX_serdes represents a delay rate of a decoding unit in the serial/parallel converter, fixed_EQ_delay represents a delay rate in a timing control unit, fixed_RX_PHY represents a delay of a reception unit in the physical layer transceiver, K represents a non-zero positive integer, and N represents a value at which the time delays of the first signal and the second signal are the same.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the serial link comprises a copper link of 10Based-T, 100Base-T, or 1000Base-T.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

calculating the delay difference between the first signal and the second signal;

wherein the first buffer and the second buffer are associated with the first signal and the second signal respectfully in the electrical transceiver.

2. A method of providing a time of day synchronization without asymmetry to be implemented in an electrical transceiver including a first interface coupled to a host device and a second interface including a physical layer transceiver coupled to a serial link, the method comprising:

reducing asymmetry for precision time protocol (PTP) or network timing protocol (NTP) traffic, in a physical layer of the electrical transceiver, without using a higher layer protocol, by making packet latency paths in both directions equal to each other between the first interface and the second interface,

wherein the reducing asymmetry comprises controlling a first signal received from the first interface and a second signal received from the second interface, through a first buffer and a second buffer of a delay equalizer such that the first signal and the second signal have a same time delay, by controlling buffering speeds of the first buffer and the second buffer based on a delay difference.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the reducing asymmetry further comprises making a time delay from the first interface coupled to the host device towards the second interface coupled to the serial link equal to a time delay from the second interface coupled to the serial link towards the first interface coupled to the host device.

10. The method of claim 2, further comprising:

calculating the delay difference between a first packet latency path from the first interface to the second interface and a second packet latency path from the second interface to the first interface;

wherein the first buffer and the second buffer are associated with the first packet latency path and the second latency path respectively in the electrical transceiver.

11. The method of claim 2, wherein the delay difference is determined by an expression:

{fixed_RX_serdes+N×

K nano-seconds+fixed_TX_PHY}={fixed_TX_serdes+fixed_EQ_delay+fixed_RX_PHY},

where fixed _RX_serdes represents a delay rate of an encoding unit in a serial/parallel converter, fixed_TX_PHY represents a delay rate of a transmission unit in the physical layer transceiver, fixed_TX_serdes represents a delay rate of a decoding unit in the serial/parallel converter, fixed_EQ_delay represents a delay rate in a timing control unit, fixed_RX_PHY represents a delay of a reception unit in the physical layer transceiver, K represents a non-zero positive integer, and N represents a value at which the time delays of the first signal and the second signal are the same.

4. A method of providing a time of day synchronization without packet delay variation (PDV) to be implemented in an electrical transceiver including a first interface coupled to a host device and a second interface including a physical layer transceiver coupled to a serial link, the method comprising:

providing a fixed delay for all traffic including precision time protocol (PTP) or network time protocol (NTP) traffic, in a physical layer of the electrical transceiver, without using a higher layer protocol, by making delays of paths in both directions equal to each other between the first interface and the second interface,

wherein the delays of paths in both direction are made equal to each other by controlling the first signal and the second signal through a first buffer and a second buffer of a delay equalizer, and buffering speeds of the first buffer and the second buffer are controlled based on a delay difference.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein a delay from the first interface coupled to the host device towards the second interface comprises a fixed latency.

6. The method of claim 4, wherein a delay from the second interface towards the first interface coupled to the host device comprises a fixed latency.