14 • AR8035 Integrated 10/100/1000 Mbps Ethernet Transceiver Atheros Communications, Inc.
14 • November 2011 COMPANY CONFIDENTIAL
2.1 Transmit Functions
Table 2-2 describes the transmit function
encoder modes.
2.2 Receive Functions
2.2.1 Decoder Modes
Table 2-3 describes the receive function
decoder modes.
2.2.2 Analog to Digital Converter
The AR8035 device employs an advanced high
speed ADC on each receive channel with high
resolution, which results in better SNR and
lower error rates.
2.2.3 Echo Canceller
A hybrid circuit is used to transmit and receive
simultaneously on each pair. A signal reflects
back as an echo if the transmitter is not
perfectly matched to the line. Other connector
or cable imperfections, such as patch panel
discontinuity and variations in cable
impedance along the twisted pair cable, also
result in drastic SNR degradation on the
receive signal. The AR8035 device implements
a digital echo canceller to adjust for echo and is
adaptive to compensate for the varied channel
conditions.
2.2.4 NEXT Canceller
The 1000 BASE-T physical layer uses all four
pairs of wires to transmit data. Because the four
twisted pairs are bundled together, significant
high frequency crosstalk occurs between
adjacent pairs in the bundle. The AR8035
device uses three parallel NEXT cancellers on
each receive channel to cancel high frequency
crosstalk. The AR8035 cancels NEXT by
subtracting an estimate of these signals from
the equalizer output.
2.2.5 Baseline Wander Canceller
Baseline wander results from Ethernet links
that AC-couple to the transceivers and from
AC coupling that cannot maintain voltage
levels for longer than a short time. As a result,
transmitted pulses are distorted, resulting in
erroneous sampled values for affected pulses.
Baseline wander is more problematic in the
1000 BASE-T environment than in 100 BASE-
TX due to the DC baseline shift in the transmit
and receive signals. The AR8035 device uses an
advanced baseline wander cancellation circuit
that continuously monitors and compensates
for this effect, minimizing the impact of DC
baseline shift on the overall error rate.
2.2.6 Digital Adaptive Equalizer
The digital adaptive equalizer removes inter-
symbol interference at the receiver. The digital
adaptive equalizer takes unequalized signals
from ADC output and uses a combination of
feedforward equalizer (FFE) and decision
Table 2-2. Encoder Mode
Encoder Mode Description
1000 BASE-T In 1000 BASE-T mode, the AR8035
scrambles transmit data bytes
from the MAC interfaces to 9-bit
symbols and encodes them into
4D five-level PAM signals over the
four pairs of CAT5 cable.
100 BASE-TX In 100 BASE-TX mode, 4-bit data
from the MII is 4B/5B serialized,
scrambled, and encoded to a
three-level MLT3 sequence
transmitted by the PMA.
10 BASE-Te In 10 BASE-Te mode, the AR8035
transmits and receives
Manchester-encoded data.
Table 2-3. Decoder Mode
Decoder Mode Description
1000 BASE-T In 1000 BASE-T mode, the PMA
recovers the 4D PAM signals after
accounting for the cabling
conditions such as skew among
the four pairs, the pair swap order,
and the polarity of the pairs. The
resulting code group is decoded
into 8-bit data values. Data stream
delimeters are translated
appropriately and data is output
to the MAC interfaces.
100 BASE-TX In 100 BASE-TX mode, the receive
data stream is recovered and
descrambled to align to the
symbol boundaries. The aligned
data is then parallelized and 5B/
4B decoded to 4-bit data. This
output runs to the MII receive
data pins after data stream
delimiters have been translated.
10 BASE-Te In 10 BASE-Te mode, the
recovered 10 BASE-Te signal is
decoded from Manchester then
aligned.