Duo collaborate on TC8 Automotive Ethernet testing

7th October 2018

Mick Elliott

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Rohde & Schwarz and Spirent have announced a partnership to provide a fully integrated test solution, offering full coverage of both the physical and protocol layers for automotive Ethernet TC8 ECU test specifications. As members of the OPEN Alliance (One-Pair Ether-Net) Special Interest Group (SIG), both companies have been working closely with the industry and have joined forces to develop tailored solutions to address the challenges that the emerging technologies bring.

The new partnership will mean customers can now have the best of both worlds when it comes to compliance testing and debugging for 100BASE-T1 and 1000BASE-T1.

Rohde & Schwarz offers a test solution to cover all the mandatory test cases for the PHY layer based on the company’s R&S RTO oscilloscope and the R&S ZND vector network analyser, while Spirent complements this solution by adding its unique Automotive C50 test platform to support all protocol layers.

Joint customers such as OEMs, tier1s, tier2s, system integrators and test houses will all benefit from the automotive expertise and global presence of both companies.

The OPEN Alliance Special Interest Group has launched a comprehensive test plan to verify the correct implementation of several standards and protocols in Automotive Ethernet ECUs, called “OPEN Alliance Automotive Ethernet ECU Test Specification - TC8 ECU and Network Test”.

Full coverage of the TC8 ECU test specifications is required by OEMs to guarantee interoperability of Automotive Ethernet communication devices. TC8 defines test processes and supports the establishment of test houses that can perform the ECU tests.

With the arrival of new systems and protocols in modern Ethernet-based in-vehicle networks, automotive test and validation engineers are challenged with new and more complex testing approaches than with traditional networks based on CAN or LIN.

Thomas Schulze, Director of Marketing and Business Development of Spirent’s Automotive Business Unit said: “This is an important partnership for automotive Ethernet based devices and networks. Spirent and Rohde & Schwarz are the first companies to offer a fully integrated solution to provide a complete coverage of the TC8 ECU test specification. We are fully committed to this cooperation to provide state-of-the-art test solutions that help pave the way to autonomous driving by combining our companies’ expertise.”