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Marvell targets deterministic industrial TSN Ethernet

Marvell targets deterministic industrial TSN Ethernet

New Products |
By Nick Flaherty



Marvell has launched a series of secure devices for time sensitive TSN deterministic networking in harsh industrial environments.

The Secure Deterministic Ethernet solution consists of Prestera switches and Alaska PHY transceivers to extend Ethernet onto the factory floor with deterministic networks.

Traditionally, proprietary protocols have been required to meet the needs of precision timing and predictable latency for deterministic networking. The new devices support time-sensitive networking (TSN) to allow different types of Ethernet traffic can share a network, allowing siloed IT and operational networks to converge.

The TSN standards enable reliable, deterministic real-time communications over Ethernet by offering bounded latency, low delay variation and extremely low packet loss. Parallel Redundancy Protocol (PRP) and Highly-available Seamless Redundancy (HSR) provide no-loss failover in case of failure of any single network element while TrackIQ provides rich telemetry data for use in network analytics and observability tools.  

A validation group was set up last year to certify TSN silicon implementations for networks in manufacturing and critical infrastructure industries such as electric utilities, railways, and energy production.

These networks are at heightened risk of cyberattack and the risks are further increased due to the location of some networking equipment, which places it at relatively greater risk of physical security breach. To better protect these networks, the new Prestera industrial-grade switches with TSN offer industry-first device- and link-level security, in the form of Secure Boot and MACsec.  

Deterministic Ethernet-based systems are expected to grow from less than 15 percent of the Ethernet switches sold for industrial use to nearly half by 2026, with the total industrial Ethernet market climbing to approximately $1.7 billion, according to 650 Group.   

The Marvell devices are intended to replace FPGA implementations that process TSN flows so that a complete industrial networking solution requires only a switch and one or more PHYs and, in some cases, only a single, integrated chip. This architectural approach dramatically reduces power, board space and device design complexity.  

 The Prestera DX1500 switch family scales from eight ports to 54 ports and is designed to be paired with the Alaska E1781 series of 10/100/1000Base-T, octal-port copper transceivers. In the case of the 8-port switch, the PHY is integrated.  

 “Ethernet-based communications technologies are increasingly being adopted for industrial applications and devices, enabling integration with IT. Real-time determinism and time-sensitive networking technology, however, remain important requirements and not features that are historically part of Ethernet,” said Anna Ahrens, senior research analyst, Manufacturing Technology, at Omdia.    

“This new solution enables us to offer the most complete portfolio of highly secure, TSN-capable industrial switches that will help our customers accelerate their customers’ digital transformation and network convergence initiatives,” said John DaCosta, vice president of marketing for the Switch Business Unit at Marvell. “As standards-based deterministic networking gains traction, there’s new opportunity for traditional IT networking vendors to enter this rapidly growing market.”   

Ruggedized -40°C to +85°C system operation enables reliable operation in harsh environments and an expected lifetime of at least 10 years.  

More information is on Marvell’s industrial switching and Ethernet PHY pages.  

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