Industrial TSN Router on NXP LS1028A with IEEE 1588 Synchronisation and Multi-Protocol Industrial I/O

Client

Engineering and manufacturing company with a head office in western Europe that is focused on R&D in NTP time servers, M2M wireless communication and telemetry.

Challenge

The customer turned to us for the design of an industrial TSN router. Our engineering team took on the design of hardware and PCB 3D models for a new enclosure, as well as the bring-up of Linux OS.

Solution

We helped our client design the time-sensitive network router for industrial applications with the following features:

NXP LS1028A CPU with 2 TSN-capable Ethernet controllers
IEEE1588 support
4 x Ethernet 1G switch ports (TSN-enabled)
SFP ports, USB 3.0 Type-A, Mini PCIe for LoRA, RS-485 + RS-232
Ethernet 1G WAN port + PoE PD
CAN + MBUS
2 х DI, 2х DO + AI + AO

Business value

Our customer received the necessary building blocks for his future product: a ready-made hardware platform with an operating system installed. The PCB was designed with the enclosure parameters in mind. We also got involved in the pre-production phase to ensure our DFM principle (design for manufacture).

Related Capability: Network Synchronization — Bridging Eras of Timing

The router in this project is built around IEEE 1588 support and TSN-enabled switch ports. This is the starting point for precise timing in network equipment, but not the finish line. Between an IEEE 1588-capable chip and a switch or router that passes a timing RFQ lies a layer of work that most network equipment vendors don't keep in-house.

We typically step in when:

An industrial switch or router vendor finds G.8275.1 or IEEE 802.1AS in a customer RFQ, with no in-house PTP expertise to deliver it.
A utility or railway equipment OEM is moving from SONET/SDH frequency distribution to IP/MPLS and needs SyncE and boundary clocks across the chain.
An industrial vendor entering private 5G needs boundary clocks that meet ITU-T G.8273.2 Class D.
A timing or IoT company extends its NTP-based product line to hardware-accurate PTP and TSN, while staying compatible with the timing gear already in the field.

Promwad works as a timing design partner. We don't sell a finished grandmaster. Instead, we embed synchronization directly into your hardware, taking into account your SoC, switch silicon and network architecture:

PTP profiles: ITU-T G.8265.1, G.8275.1, G.8275.2, IEC 62439-3 and IEEE 802.1AS
Boundary clock performance from Class A to Class D (ITU-T G.8273.2)
SyncE per ITU-T G.8262 and enhanced G.8262.1 for critical infrastructure
Interworking with legacy SONET/SDH (G.813) and PDH (G.812) clocks during migration
Custom architectures for delivering reference time and frequency to end nodes in your specific network