Industry Standard IEC 63171-6 Is Now Freely Available

2023 Author: Hannah Pearcy | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-05-24 11:12

On January 23, 2020, the international standard for single-pair Ethernet interfaces in industrial applications was published with IEC 63171-6. The publisher is the IEC Committee SC 48B copper connector.

The standard for the IEC 63171-6 T1 Industrial Style mating face was the first standard that Harting submitted to SC 48B in 2016 for a single-pair Ethernet mating face. "This early initiative is now paying off and for 2020 users will finally have a reliable investment basis for future-proof IIoT networks based on single-pair Ethernet," explains Ralf Klein, Managing Director Harting Electronics.

IEC 63171-6 (Industrial Style) is a complete standards document with all the necessary specifications and test sequences and is incorporated into the current SPE cabling standards of the series of standards for structured cabling ISO / IEC 11801-x. The implementation of SPE in the ISO / IEC 11801 documents is so important because only in this standard the cabling channels with all necessary parameters (length, number of connections, bandwidth and the complete set of transmission parameters including NEXT, FEXT, shielding properties, etc.)) with relation to the environment - MICE are described and can then also be checked by measurement after installation. This connection of component standards to connectors and cables gives all SPE users clear guidelines for setting up and checking the corresponding transmission links.

The use of other cabling components than, for example, in ISO / IEC 11801-3 Amd.1 is possible in principle, but then no longer in compliance with the standards and involves the risk of incompatibilities and functional losses. That is why ISO / IEC JTC 1 / SC 25 / WG 3 and TIA TR-42 started international selection processes in early 2018 to define uniform interfaces. These two selection processes were co-initiated by the IEEE 802.3 by requesting a recommendation for a SPE Media Depended Interface (MDI) from ISO / IEC and TIA. Over 20 national expert panels took part in this selection process. As a result of this choice, a mating face has prevailed for industrial applications:For industrial and industry-related applications (M2I2C2E2 and M3I3C3E3), the mating face according to IEC 63171-6 is based on the proposal from Harting T1 Industrial.

The selection process at TIA TR-42 has confirmed the results of ISO / IEC, and there is great global agreement on the SPE interfaces. These selected plug faces are now incorporated into the respective international cabling standards. IEEE 802.3 has also defined this SPE interface in the IEEE 802.3cg as the recommended Media Dependent Interface (MDI).

Consistent standardization pays off. With IEC 63171-6, the last building block for a consistently standardized SPE infrastructure has now been set. IEC 63171-6, IEEE 802.3cg, ISO / IEC JTC 1 / SC 25 / WG 3 and TIA TR-42 are closed for the T1 Industrial Style as an industrial SPE interface.

The SPE Industrial Partner Network founded in 2019, consisting of 17 technology leaders to date, is fully committed to the IEC 63171-6 standard and offers the emerging single-pair Ethernet user group a broad investment basis for IIoT networks based on SPE.

This article first appeared on our partner portal Elektronikpraxis.de.