NETWORKING - TTech switches bring hard real time traffic to Ethernet

8/12/2009 1:19 AM EDT

According to the company, the key benefit of these switches is the additional support for the TTEthernet protocol. In order to define and develop a TTEthernet system different switches are available: The TTE-Development Switch available with 100 Mbit/s ports or 1 Gbit/s ports and the TTE-Monitoring Switch for monitoring of data streams.

TTEthernet technology enables hard real-time operation in distributed systems based on Ethernet networks. Unlike other real-time Ethernet variants, TTEthernet offers full scalability for real-time architectures based on standard IEEE 802.3 Ethernet, from low-cost low-integrity to highly fault-tolerant ultra-criticality systems.

TTEthernet switches take care of partitioning among time-triggered, rate-constraint, and best-effort Ethernet traffic. High-priority time-triggered messages are routed through the switch according to a predefined schedule with pre-definable constant latency and jitter in the sub-microsecond range.

Rate-constraint messages are passed on according to the respective guaranteed bandwidth reservations. Finally, best-effort Ethernet messages are forwarded when bandwidth is available.

The TTE-Development Switch 100 Mbit/s has eight ports and is based on an Altera Cyclone III FPGA, offering maximum flexibility for customer-specific extensions.

By using the software tool TTE-Load, the configuration data of the switch can be updated via the network. The configuration data will be stored in non-volatile memory and will become effective at the next power-up or reset.

The TTE-Development Switch 1 Gbit/s provides four SFP slots where each supports a bandwidth of 1 Gbit/s. Each slot can be equipped with an SFP module using copper or fiber as transmission medium. The switch is based on an Altera Stratix II GX FPGA board.

The TTE-Monitoring Switch offers the same features as the TTE-Development Switch 1 Gbit/s. In addition, it contains four 1 Gbit/s monitoring ports that allow monitoring the traffic of a TTEthernet network. The switch provides an easy-to-use debugging solution, speeding up rapid-prototyping processes and enabling convenient debugging of TTEthernet networks.

To learn more, go to www.tttech.com.