Toshiba Expands Lineup of Ethernet Bridge ICs for Automotive Information Communication Systems and Industrial Equipment Applications

     Toshiba Electronic Devices & Storage Corporation announced that it has launched a new product line of Ethernet bridge ICs, "TC9563XBG", designed to support 10Gbps communication in automotive telematics systems and industrial equipment. Sample shipments of the product are now underway and mass production will begin in August 2022.

     In-vehicle networks are moving towards a regional architecture [1], based on Ethernet with a rate of 1 Gbps and above, using real-time multi-gigabit [2] transmission to achieve communication between regions. For the first time, Toshiba has configured dual-port 10Gbps Ethernet for this newly introduced bridge IC, supporting interfaces such as USXGMII, XFI, SGMII and RGMII[3]. Two ports support Ethernet AVB[4] and Ethernet TSN[5] for real-time processing and synchronous processing. In addition, they also support a "lite" SR-IOV (virtual function) [6]. Toshiba has incorporated these features into this new product to create a solution for next-generation automotive networks.

     As communication equipment continues to operate at higher speeds, the new ICs can be used not only in regional architectures, but also in a variety of other in-vehicle applications such as IVI and in-vehicle communications; in addition to industrial equipment. Toshiba's TC9560 and TC9562 series products both support 1Gbps Ethernet, this time the launch is the successor of new products.

     In recent years, more and more devices are equipped with PCIe interfaces to enable inter-device communication such as Wi-Fi®, but the PCIe interface of the host SoC is increasingly insufficient. TC9563XBG provides three PCIe Gen3 Switch interfaces for communicating with the host SoC and connecting with other devices equipped with PCIe interfaces. These PCIe Switch interfaces are configured with a 4-lane upstream port to connect to the host SoC, and two 1-lane downstream ports to connect devices with PCIe interfaces. Connecting these devices through the 3-port PCIe Switch feature can help alleviate the shortage of PCIe interfaces.

     The TC9563XBG is planned to be AEC-Q100 Level 3 [7] certified.