BoardR Reach

BroadR-Reach technology is an Ethernet physical layer standard designed for use in automotive connectivity applications.

BroadR-Reach allows multiple in-vehicle systems to simultaneously access information over unshielded single twisted pair cable.

This benefits manufacturers integrating the BroadR-Reach Ethernet standard include performance, reduced connectivity costs and cabling weight.

BroadR-Reach within a vehicle enables the migration from multiple closed networks (FlexRay, CAN, etc.) to a single open, scalable Ethernet-based network within the vehicle.

This allows manufacturers to incorporate multiple electronic systems and devices, such as advanced safety features (i.e. 360- degree surround view parking assistance, rear-view cameras and collision avoidance systems) and comfort and infotainment features.

The automotive-qualified BroadR-Reach Ethernet physical layer standard can be combined with IEEE 802.3 compliant switch technology to deliver 100Mbit/s over unshielded single twisted pair cable.

The BroadR-Reach automotive Ethernet standard provides full-duplex operations on a single-pair cable, and uses a signalling scheme with higher spectral efficiency than that of 100BASE-TX. This limits the signal bandwidth of Automotive Ethernet to 33.3 MHz, which is about half the bandwidth of 100BASE-TX. A lower signal bandwidth improves return loss, reduces crosstalk, and ensures that BroadR-Reach automotive Ethernet standard passes the stringent automotive electromagnetic emission requirements.

The OPEN Alliance SIG is a special interest group formed by BMW, Broadcom, Freescale, Harman, Hyundai, NXP and STMicroelectronics to establish BroadR-Reach as an open standard and to encourage wide scale adoption of automotive Ethernet as the connectivity standard in automotive networking applications.  BroadR Reach is now included as 100BASE-T1 in the IEEE 802.3bw-2015 standards.