Advanet's
ExpEther™ - ExpEther ExpEther™ Solution
What is ExpEther™?
In recent years, there has been an increasing need to support high-mix low-volume production and improve productivity at manufacturing sites in preparation for the next-generation industry. In response, industrial equipment is required to be developed quickly, at low cost, and with high performance, and Ethernet and PCI ExpressⓇ are increasingly being used to build low-cost, flexible, and high-performance systems.
On the other hand, industrial equipment may be distributed in a large building, making highly reliable communication a challenge for Ethernet, and long-distance communication a challenge for PCI ExpressⓇ.
ExpEther™, developed by NEC, transmits PCI ExpressⓇ data and clock signals via a high-speed and highly reliable protocol using Ethernet as the communication channel. This makes it possible to extend PCI ExpressⓇ connections over long distances of 1 km or more while maintaining high reliability. It can also be used in networks that include general switches, allowing flexible network construction similar to normal Ethernet. In addition, general-purpose digital I/O transmission is also supported, enabling low-jitter synchronization of power and reset signals between remote devices.
Flexible, low-risk system development with Advanet's ExpEther™ solution!
Advanet has developed a new series of ExpEther™ boards to take full advantage of this technology.
This series includes 1G ExpEther™ host bus adapter products and 1G ExpEther™ slave adapter products. The ExpEther™ engine is recognized by software as a transparent PCI ExpressⓇ switch, so no special drivers or software are required for deployment. This allows customers to shorten their development process and reduce risk by allowing them to expand their systems while leveraging their existing assets.
Example of ExpEther™ proposal for semiconductor manufacturing equipment
Use Case 1: Wafer inspection system with high-resolution camera
- Since it can be divided into separate enclosures, restrictions on component selection (enclosure size, busses, etc.) are easily relaxed.
- Easy to repair, update, etc., part by part.
- It is also easy to flexibly change the configuration when differentiating the performance of each model of the final product.
Use Case 2: Storage of inspection data
Connecting to NVMe in the storage box as PCIe (software) instead of connecting to SAN through Infiniband, Ethernet, etc., is expected to reduce software elements (drivers, etc.) and lower development risk and cost.
Use Case 3: Switching from VME CPU board to BOXPC
Enables gradual HW updates by allowing the adoption of new expansion cards and platforms while ensuring compatibility with legacy systems and hardware/software compatibility.
