Marvell introduces 1st 1000BASE-T1 automotive Ethernet PHY transceiver; Gigabit Ethernet for connected cars
20 October 2015
Marvell, a leading fabless semiconductor company, introduced the Marvell 88Q2112, the industry’s first 1000BASE-T1 automotive Ethernet physical layer (PHY) transceiver compliant with the draft IEEE 802.3bp 1000BASE-T1 standard—i.e., Gigabit Ethernet for cars. The 88Q2112 supports the industry’s highest in-vehicle connectivity bandwidth and is designed to meet the rigorous EMI requirements of an automotive system.
The 1000BASE-T1 standard allows high speed and bi-directional data traffic over light weight, low-cost, single pair cable harnesses. The Marvell 88Q2112 will sample to Marvell’s global customers starting in November 2015.
The automotive industry is just now beginning to design in 100 Megabit Ethernet. The specification of a BroadR-Reach compliant IEEE standard is about to be finalized as IEEE 100BASE-T1; the release of a next generation IEEE 1000BASE-T1 technology is expected in early 2016. (Earlier post.)
Marvell, which is not a member of the OPEN Alliance (One-Pair EtherNet) driving 100Base-T adoption, sees its Gigabit solution as providing a high speed backplane for the rapidly proliferating automotive network; the company does not see Gigabit Ethernet replacing 100 Base-T in the vehicle.
As cars are being designed and manufactured with more sophisticated Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS), automotive manufacturers and engineers are looking for solutions to meet the growing in-vehicle connectivity bandwidth demands. Marvell was instrumental in the development of the IEEE 802.3bp standard; therefore, I am thrilled that Marvell is the first silicon provider to offer a 1000Mbps automotive Ethernet transceiver.
The 88Q2112 extends Marvell’s leadership of providing best-in-class Wi-Fi and telematics connectivity solutions and supports the 1000Mbps connectivity needs of next-generation connected and autonomous cars. Marvell’s automotive solutions are designed to connect the connected car.
—Philip Poulidis, Vice President and General Manager, Automotive, Wireless and Internet of Things Business Units at Marvell
Marvell’s 88Q2112 enables the transport of uncompressed 720p30 camera video and supports multiple High Definition (HD) video streams with up to 4K resolution. The 88Q2112 features upgrade compatibility to support both 100Mbps and 1000Mbps single pair Ethernet solutions and can be used to aggregate multiple 100Mbps Ethernet domains. The 88Q2112 also supports the high data rate sensors needed for autonomous vehicles.
The line interface of the 88Q2112 is fully compliant to the draft IEEE 802.3bp standard that defines the physical layer specifications and management parameters for 1000Mbps operation over a single unshielded twisted pair copper cable. Single pair Ethernet allows selection of light-weight low-cost cable harness.
In terms of application trends for Gigabit Ethernet, Marvell sees:
Gigabit Ethernet will first be used to connect infotainment modules.
While basic visual systems will stay with 100 Mpbs, Gigabit Ethernet will be used for image processing and high-fidelity object recognition—the most bandwidth intensive in-vehicle applications.
100 Mbps will be used to connect within domains, while Gigabit Ethernet will connect the major control domains—i.e., the network backplane.

Marvell will be demonstrating the 88Q2112 at the IEEE Standards Association (IEEE-SA) Ethernet & IP @ Automotive Technology Day 2015, held 27-28 October, at the Pacifico Yokohama Conference Center in Japan.
This is a little "commercial" by me for a GCC reference to a really interesting article on driverless mining trucks already in use by Rio Tinto for transporting iron ore. They can do it because these monster trucks operate on private property where the traffic law does not apply. Otherwise it would be illegal. The setting is more simple than public city roads. But there can be no doubt that autonomous cars are coming and that they are not decades away.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-10-18/rio-tinto-opens-worlds-first-automated-mine/6863814
Posted by: Account Deleted | 20 October 2015 at 08:32 AM
Having watched the automotive communications protocols go from a few tens of bits per second, to 7800 bits per second, to megabit-class data rates for CAN, and now to 100-base2 speeds and up, this is fascinating.
Posted by: Engineer-Poet | 20 October 2015 at 03:08 PM
Frankly, I do not think it will take long before we see 10Gbit Ethernet for autonomous cars. They need it to gather uncompressed 4k stereo video perhaps at 120 fps from possible 12 locations on the car to obtain a 360 degree view. In a fully autonomous car you also need redundancy of those cameras. So we get 2*12*2 = 48 cameras at 4k and 120 fps uncompressed to save money and power at the sensor level. We need 10 Gbit Ethernet for that.
The cars internet connection will also be fast. Early next year top smart phones will get cat12 4G with 600mbits downstream and 150mbit upstream speed. In 2020 we will have 5G phones with several gigabits up and downstream connections. Every fully self-driving car on the road could feed back-end data centres with up-to-date high quality 3D maps of whatever place they drive through. These maps could then be used to enhance the precision of the navigation for the next car driving through the same locations. They could also be used to make a live update of traffic as it currently is everywhere and thereby enhance the logistics of every self-driving car on this system. They may seldom get stock on a congested road because the system can predict when and were that will happen and it will find an alternative route.
Posted by: Account Deleted | 20 October 2015 at 11:26 PM