Pico seeks beta test applicants for Ethernet protocol decoder

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 is preparing to introduce a first non-intrusive full duplex automotive Ethernet protocol decoder, analyser and measurement system. It will run on any PicoScope model with a bandwidth of 200MHz and above including the PicoScope 3000, 5000 and 6000 Series instruments.

Ahead of the formal launch, Pico is 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.