CX11656 HomePlug 1.0 PHY Data Sheet
1.
Introduction
1.1
Overview
The Conexantä CX11656 device is an integrated physical layer transceiver or PHY
(Figure 1-1). It is designed to use existing ac electrical wiring within the home as a
networking physical medium. The PHY’s robust performance in the electrically noisy
power line channel is due to the use of Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing
(OFDM). This multi-carrier modulation scheme allows the PHY to dynamically “learn
the channel”— data can be shifted from one carrier to another as real time noise and
attenuation conditions change. This overcomes the flaw inherent in previous power line
networking technologies—as electrical appliances were turned on and off, changing line
conditions caused signal quality to become degraded to such an extent that data
transmission became impossible. The CX11656’s OFDM technology finds the low noise,
low attenuation portions of the spectrum available to it and continues data transmission.
The CX11656 is compliant with the HomePlug Powerline Alliance Industry Specification
V1.0. This ensures interoperability with other HomePlug PHYs. Quality-of-service (QoS)
is built into the PHY to ensure low-latency, high reliability channels for streaming audio,
streaming video, voice, and gaming, and video.
The PHY utilizes the IEEE 802.3u standard Media Independent Interface (MII). This
standard interface can also be configured as a seven-wire General Purpose Serial
Interface (GPSI). These standard interfaces allow the CX11656 to be paired almost any
embedded media access controller (MAC) for use in a variety of information appliances.
The CX11656 operates on both +1.8 V and +3.3 V supplies and is packaged in a 144-pin
Low Quad Flat Pack (LQFP).
The CX11656 ordering information is listed in Table 1-1.
A functional block diagram of the CX11656 is shown in Figure 1-2.
Please contact Conexant marketing for information concerning the AFE.
Figure 1-1. CX11656 HomePlug 1.0 PHY Simplified Hardware Interface
Ethernet
Interface
MII/GPSI
Interface
Parallel
Conexant
CX11656
Interface
802.3 EMAC
(e.g., Conexant
CX82100)
Analog
Powerline
Coupler
HomePlug 1.0 PHY
144-Pin LQFP
Front End*
* See Section 5.4.
102069_001
102069A
Conexant Proprietary and Confidential Information
1-1
CONEXANT [ CONEXANT SYSTEMS, INC ]
