Development and Verification of Energy Efficient Ethernet (EEE) feature for 10G Ethernet

Abstract

Ethernet is the dominant wireline technology for local area networks all over the world. The efficient use of energy in communications is a growing concern for the industry. The networks are provisioned for worst-case or busy-hour load, and this load typically exceeds its long-term utilization by a wide margin. The massive amount of communication devices that are used now a days and their expected growth have led to the conclusion that signficant energy can be saved by applying energy efficiency concepts in the design of communication systems. Energy Efficient Ethernet (EEE) is considered as a promising technology for the next generation of local area networks. It allows non critical portions of the link partners to go to sleep during the hours of low link utilization and wake them back when desired. Although the savings vary from device to device, the energy consumption when the device is in low power mode can be as low as 10 percent that of the active mode. IEEE has recently approved Energy Efficient Ethernet as a standard. For the verification of EEE compliant upcoming devices, verification environment must be equipped with EEE feature. In this thesis, EEE implementation for the interfaces 10G media independent interface (XGMII) and 10G attachment unit interface (XAUI) is elaborated. The implementation is carried through in Ethernet e verification component (eVC) as Verification IP, and methodology being followed is eRM. The motivation behind the work carried out is to develop and verify the EEE feature in eVC itself for its functional correctness.