Eon Semiconductor Releases Nemo Series Chips: 10 Gigabit Ethernet Technology Innovates In-Vehicle Communication Networks

SILICON VALLEY, USA & NANJING, China--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Eon Semiconductor today announced its entry into the automotive market and launched the NemoTM series of chips for in-vehicle networking (IVN). Designed to provide end-to-end in-vehicle network solutions, NemoTM includes MIPI CSI-2 serial bridge chips, CSI-2 deserialization aggregation chips, single/dual-port 10G in-vehicle Ethernet PHY chips, and 6-port regional switching chips. This series of chips is the world's first switch chip with integrated in-vehicle 10G PHY, as well as the world's lowest power 10GBASE-T1 PHY chip for symmetric and asymmetric communications. This marks NemoTM as the industry's most complete and advanced 10G Ethernet series chip designed based on the IEEE 802.3ch standard to date.

In recent years, Ethernet has become the first choice in automotive network communication technology. The use of regional electrical/electronic (E/E) architecture based on this technology can bring significant network performance improvement and cable weight reduction, thereby greatly saving vehicle costs. However, due to the lack of high-speed, low-power, cost-competitive asymmetric Ethernet PHY solutions for sensors on the market, sensor communication links cannot catch up with automotive Ethernet, but continue to rely on private standard point-to-point SerDes technology. The NemoTM series of chips launched by Eon Semiconductor will completely change this situation. This series of chips can achieve symmetrical and asymmetric Ethernet communication at 10G/5G/2.5G rates over a distance of up to 15 meters through a single twisted pair or coaxial cable. In the asymmetric communication scenario of sensor applications, NemoTM uses high-efficiency Ethernet (EEE) technology to achieve ultra-low power system requirements. Among them, the AS30110 Ethernet serializer has an overall power consumption of less than 300mW in the scenario of 10Gbps effective bandwidth with a high-resolution camera, and less than 200mW in 5Gbps effective bandwidth mode. The AS30010/20 single-port/dual-port PHY chip consumes less than 800mW per port in a symmetrical 10G communication scenario.

Regarding the market trend of in-vehicle sensors, Pierrick Boulay, senior technology and market analyst for automotive semiconductors at Yole Group, explained: "With the popularity of advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) and fully autonomous driving (FSD), the sensor market including cameras, radars and lidars is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 14% per year to US$27 billion in 2028." The large number of in-vehicle sensors has greatly increased the requirements for the number of nodes and bandwidth of the in-vehicle network, and also brought great system cost pressure. In-vehicle Ethernet sensor technology is the key to solving these problems.

The next generation of in-vehicle network technology that car manufacturers and Tier 1 suppliers are looking for is a communication solution based on open standards and with an interoperable multi-supplier ecosystem. Integrating the various existing IVN technologies into a standardized protocol can greatly shorten the product development cycle, improve design quality and reduce costs. IEEE802.3ch is such a protocol. Dr. Yunteng Huang, CEO of Eon Semiconductor, said: "Ethernet PHY was once mistakenly believed to be not energy efficient enough in asymmetric camera link applications. On the contrary, compared with similar-rate serializers on the market, our Ethernet camera solution actually has the lowest power consumption. The serial chip uses a compact 5mm x 5mm package and supports a reference clock-free mode, which further reduces the camera's bill of materials (BOM) cost. The launch of the NemoTM series of chips marks an important milestone on the evolution of IVN. By seamlessly integrating up to dozens of automotive sensors end-to-end into a unified Ethernet network, the software and hardware on the 'mobile data center on wheels' will be greatly optimized in architecture. This will provide a key technological breakthrough for achieving a highly intelligent, highly reliable and economical travel experience."

Main features of NemoTM series chips:

• AS30110: Total power consumption is less than 300mW, making it the industry's lowest power 10Gbps camera CSI-2 serializer, while supporting 15m coaxial cable. The bill of materials cost of the POC solution is 50% lower than similar products.

  
  

• AS30240: Four-port deserializer with built-in time-sensitive networking (TSN) capabilities.

  
  

• AS30010/20: Single/dual port 10GBASE-T1 PHY, with a large margin over 15m transmission distance. In full-duplex symmetrical mode, the power consumption per port is less than 800mW.

  
  

• AS30340: A 6-port Ethernet switch for regional aggregation controllers. It comes with 4 integrated MGBASE-T1 PHYs with a total switching bandwidth of 40Gbps.

  
  

The NemoTM series chips are designed with automotive-grade production processes and meet AEC-Q100 Grade 2 and ISO26262 ASIL-B standards. Evaluation kits and samples are available to select customers, and an end-to-end real-time demonstration will be shown at the AutoSens show in Detroit from May 21 to 23.

For more information on the NemoTM family of chips and how they are changing in-vehicle networking, visit eOn Semiconductor's website.

About Eon Semiconductor:

Eon Semiconductor is an integrated circuit (IC) design company headquartered in Silicon Valley, USA. Our mission is to provide the next generation of network infrastructure to promote the intelligence of all things. We provide chip solutions for communications, industrial and automotive applications, enabling data to be transmitted and circulated at faster speeds, more precise timing and with higher energy efficiency.