Ethernet on wheels

The news is that the automotive industry is making strong efforts to standardize Ethernet as in-vehicle network for high bandwidth applications such as cameras and multimedia. Up to now, high bandwidth meant proprietary network architectures with cumbersome cabling, expensive physical interface devices, custom tools and limited supplier base.

Recently, Broadcom, BMW, NXP, Freescale, Hyundai Motor Company and Harman announced the formation of the OPEN Alliance SIG (One-Pair Ether-Net Special Interest Group). The alliance’s goal is to enable wide scale adoption of Ethernet in automotive, establish industry standards for Ethernet connectivity over a single pair unshielded cable and enable migration from closed application to open, scalable Ethernet-based network.

With more than 40 years of development history, Ethernet is the de-facto industry standard for high bandwidth communication in networking, office, industrial and other markets. Since these industries spearhead the communication bandwidth requirements, the automotive world can rely on future developments, wide availability of tools, widespread knowledge base and broad support from the semiconductor industry. Already today, many of Freescale’s microcontrollers feature an integrated Ethernet MAC layer, including the 32-bit Qorivva MPC5604E MCU for ADAS applications that supports audio video bridging (AVB).

Key to the OPEN Alliance is the proliferation of Broadcom’s BroadR-Reach® technology as an open standard. It addresses key concerns of the automotive industry such as the stringent EMC requirements, weight reduction, availability from multiple sources and cost efficiency. Based on single unshielded twisted pair cable (UTP), it delivers a bandwidth of 100Mbps, perfectly suitable to handle applications such as camera-based park assist systems.

Analysts project significant digital camera growth for advanced driver assistance systems. Broadcom, Freescale and OmniVision have collaborated to develop the world’s first Ethernet-based 360-degree surround view parking assistance camera system. Based on the Broadcom® BroadR-Reach® BCM89810 physical layer transceiver (PHY), the Freescale 32-bit Qorivva MPC5604E MCU, and OmniVision’s OV10630 color CMOS image sensor, the system expands the opportunity for OEMs to deploy surround view parking assistance capability across a broad range of vehicle classes, ranging from luxury to mass market automobiles.

Ethernet on wheels — ground breaking news? No, not really. But this new way of using it will bring a host of automotive applications to market that were never imagined before.