An easy and high precision implementation of IEEE 1588 PTP protocol for real-time Ethernet

Abstract:
Highly precise synchronized networking is a major requirement to optimize process activities in the factory automation domain. Within the controlled processes, most of the real-time Ethernet standards use a master - slave communication structure, and reserved bandwidth in the data frame, to establish a close coordination of events within nodes on a distributed network. Time critical operations are controlled by local clocks used to sequence the capturing of events and generation of triggers. This paper discusses an alternative solution to implement a 10/100 Mb/s Ethernet physical layer device with integrated hardware support for IEEE 1588.