KR20030091076A - Apparatus and Method for connecting selectively an optical module or a RJ-45 connector to one connector. - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: A matching device and method for selectively connecting an optical module and an RJ-45 connector to the same connector are provided to remarkably reduce a space and cost required for manufacturing a giga-bit Ethernet-related product. CONSTITUTION: A device for matching an RJ-45 connector with a female connector includes a means for matching an MDI interface with a common connector, a means for utilizing a pin among connector pins as an MDI interface signal, and an RJ-45 matching board structure(303) and circuit required for matching the RJ-45 connector to the connector. An optical module matching board(304) and the RJ-45 matching board are constructed as the common board according to divided allocation pins.

Description

{Apparatus and Method for connecting selectively an optical module or a RJ-45 connector to one connector.}

The present invention proposes a method and a device that can be matched to a connector that can be used in common for the optical module for gigabit optical interface and RJ-45 connector for gigabit copper interface, and dramatically space and cost when manufacturing a product related to Gigabit Ethernet The purpose is to make it possible.

The present invention is to mount the optical module and RJ-45 connector when you want to manufacture an Ethernet system or device that supports the optical interface (SerDes: Serializer and Deserializer) and RJ-45 interface (MDI: Media Dependent Interface) at the same time The present invention relates to a method and apparatus capable of implementing 10/100 / 1000BASE-T based on optical cable based on 1000BASE-LX, 1000BASE-SX, and Category 5 UTP cable based on the same port. For example, if the host board is equipped with a female connector that can accommodate an optical interface (SerDes) and an RJ-45 interface (MDI), and the optical module matching device is coupled to this connector, the optical interface is activated, and the RJ-45 matching device The present invention relates to a method and an apparatus for enabling a copper interface to be activated by combining a single physical port to simultaneously support a copper wire and an optical cable.

Ethernet-based Internet networks require high speed and large capacity over time, and the port capacity and number of ports in the system matching device are increasing accordingly. Assuming a matching device handles 10 Gigabit traffic, more than 10 Gigabit Ethernet ports are required. Since Gigabit Ethernet can support both optical and Category 5 UTP cables as defined by IEEE802.3z (100BASE-X) and IEEE802.3ab (1000BASE-T), matching devices that accept Gigabit Ethernet ports are standard-compliant optical modules. It is necessary to implement (IEEE802.3z) and RJ-45 (IEEE802.3ab) ports alternatively.

Figure 1 shows the Gigabit Ethernet sublayer. In general, in FIG. 1, the physical layer block 102 is a gigabit Ethernet transceiver. The physical layer block 102 is configured to independently accommodate an RJ-45 and an optical module and may be selected by a user as needed. The Gigabit Media Independent Interface (GMII) between the MAC 101 and the PHY 102 is a standard interface supporting 1000-Mbps half-duplex and full-duplex including 10 and 100 Mbps as an extension of the MII interface.

RJ-45 connector 103 generally refers to a connector mounted on a LAN card of a general PC, and is composed of a male connector mounted on the host board and a male connector connected to the end of the UTP cable.

The gigabit Ethernet optical module 104 includes a small form factor (SFF), a small form factor pluggable (SFP), a gigabit interface conversion (GBIC), and a 1x9 transceiver, depending on the package form. SFF and SFP type optical modules are only half the size of GBICs or 1x9 transceivers, making them suitable for systems with dozens of optical modules. The optical module of the SFF type illustrated in the present invention is divided into 2x5 and 2x10 according to the number of pins. In the present invention, both types of optical modules can be accommodated, but most of the pins are not used, so 2x5 will be used as a representative example.

To implement the optical module and RJ-45 connector connected to one PHY block 102 as a separate port to manufacture a system to accommodate the optical cable and UTP cable as shown in FIG. do. For example, suppose you are implementing a matching device that accepts 10 Gigabit traffic, and you give users the choice, the Gigabit Ethernet port should consist of at least 10 ports each for the optical module and RJ-45. Since only one port should be selected as either an optical module port or RJ-45 port, the optical module and RJ-45 port should have at least 20 ports in total, but since the actual number of ports is only half, 10 or more ports are used. The above port is a waste of space. It can also cause confusion about which one will be connected to the system when a cable is mistakenly inserted into the optical module port and RJ-45 port at the same time.

The present invention provides an optical cable-based optical module by unifying an Ethernet port connected to an Ethernet PHY 102 capable of simultaneously supporting an optical interface (SerDes) and a copper interface (MDI) to a single port without distinguishing the optical module from the RJ-45. Connector) and UTP cable-based RJ-45 connector (male connector) to the same connector (female connector) without any special purpose to implement so that can be mounted and used arbitrarily.

1 is an exemplary diagram of a general structure and a circuit diagram connected to an Ethernet physical layer and a transmission medium to which the present invention is applied.

2 is an exemplary diagram of a general structure and circuit diagram in which a gigabit Ethernet physical layer, an optical cable, and a UTP cable are independently matched according to the present invention.

Figure 3 is a representative view of the present invention is a matching device having a structure in which the optical module matching device or RJ-45 matching device is mounted to one matching unit.

4 is an exemplary diagram of a structure and a circuit diagram in which an optical interface (SerDes) and an MDI interface are connected to one same female connector on a host board according to the present invention.

Figure 5 is an illustration of the external structure of the RJ-45 matching device according to the present invention.

6 is an exemplary view of an external structure of an optical module matching stop according to the present invention.

Figure 7 is an illustration of a detailed circuit diagram of the structure of the RJ-45 matching device according to the present invention.

8 is an exemplary circuit diagram of a structure of an optical module matching device according to the present invention;

* Explanation of symbols for the main parts of the drawings

301: Gigabit Ethernet Physical Layer

302: host board matching unit

303: RJ-45 matching device

304: optical module matching device

305: host board

The present invention focuses on a method light device that can accommodate an optical module (including a male connector) or an RJ-45 male connector in one connector as described above.

2 illustrates a general system implementation example, in which an optical module and an RJ-45 connector are implemented in separate spaces. By placing the optical module 104 and the magnetic / RJ-45 female connector 103 separately, the PHY 102 block and the 1 Gigabit SerDes interface are connected to the optical module and the MDI interface to the RJ-45 connector. Shown is a schematic circuit that implements a typical Ethernet port. 2 is to configure a single physical port, and the optical path and the copper path completely configured in hardware.

3 is a block diagram of the present invention, in which a gigabit physical layer 301, a matching unit 302 of a host board 305, and an optical interface (SerDes) and a copper interface (MDI) are connected to one connector, and UTP. RJ-45 matching device 303 implemented so that the cable can be matched with the host board matching unit 302, and the optical module matching device 304, the optical cable is matched with the host board matching unit 302.

In the general system of FIG. 2, since the optical module 104 and the magnetic / RJ-45 connector 103 are fixed on the host board, only one physical port of the optical module or the RJ-45 connector is used, but physically two on the host board are used. The port must be fitted. On the contrary, in the form of FIG. 3 constituting the present invention, since the RJ-45 and the optical module are not implemented in the host board and are configured as separate modules and selectively installed as necessary, the system supports the optical interface and the copper interface simultaneously. The biggest feature is that it can be configured with four physical ports.

4 is a schematic block diagram of a host board as an embodiment of the present invention. The female connector 302 is matched through the MDI interface and the optical interface separated from the Ethernet PHY 301 as a matching part in the host board.

TRD + [3: 0] and TRD- [3: 0] defined for the MDI interface are four pairs of differential signals to and from the RJ-45 connector in 1000BASE-T mode, whereas 10BASE-T and 100BAST-T, and In the auto-negotiation state, TRD ± [3: 2] is not used, TRD ± [0] is used for transmission, and TRD ± [1] is used for reception. The SerDes interface and the MDI interface are automatically recognized by the signal detection capability so that the MDI interface is not used when the SerDes interface is selected. The pins assigned to the female connector 302 may be arbitrarily changed depending on the implementation manner.

FIG. 5 illustrates a top view, a front view, and a side view of a hardware embodiment of the RJ-45 matching device 303 as an embodiment of the present invention. The RJ-45 matching device 303 is implemented with a male connector 502 in the form of a printed circuit board (PCB), and the male connector should be manufactured to be mounted on the female connector 302 of the host board. RJ-45 matching device 303 may include an LED indicating the RJ-45 connector, magnetic, link status and the like. RJ-45 matching device 303 may be implemented through a circuit configuration as shown in FIG. The optical interface pins are not connected and the MDI interface related pins are connected 1: 1 to the magnetic / RJ-45 connector 503.

FIG. 6 illustrates a top view, a front view, and a side view of an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, which is a hardware form of an optical module matching device 304 having an SFF type. The male connector 602 is implemented in the form of a PCB of the optical module matching device 304, and the male connector must be manufactured to be mounted on the female connector 302 of the host board. Therefore, the male connector 502 of the RJ-45 matching device 303 and the male connector 602 of the optical module matching device 304 should have the same structure. FIG. 8 is a circuit diagram of the optical module matching device 304. The MDI interface is not used because it is not used, while the optical interface is connected with the associated pin of the optical module. Therefore, the same host matching unit 302 is used, but since the optical interface and the MDI interface are completely separated, the PCB constituting the RJ-45 matching device 303 and the optical module matching device 304 may be configured as one board. Can be. That is, a common PCB such as FIG. 5 or FIG. 6 may be manufactured by configuring FIG. 7 and FIG. 8 into one diagram.

As described above, the method of the present invention may be implemented as a program and stored in a recording medium (CD-ROM, RAM, ROM, floppy disk, hard disk, magneto-optical disk, etc.) in a computer-readable form. Since this process can be easily implemented by those skilled in the art will not be described in more detail.

The present invention described above is not limited to the above-described embodiments and the accompanying drawings, and it is possible in the technical field to which various substitutions, modifications, and changes can be made without departing from the technical spirit of the present invention. It will be clear to those of ordinary knowledge.

As described above, the present invention relates to a method and an apparatus for directly connecting an optical module or an RJ-45 connector to a common connector without special setting according to a user's use, and through the present invention, a UTP cable instead of an expensive optical module. The local area network can be implemented by using, and optical cables can be connected by connecting optical modules instead of RJ-45 connectors as needed. In addition, the space required for implementing the optical module connector and the RJ-45 connector separately on the system panel can be saved. When the optical module and the RJ-45 connector are separately implemented in one physical layer block, two ports may be connected at the same time. There is an effect that can prevent the confusion that occurs when. The scope of the present invention can be applied to various devices and terminals for home networking as well as various devices and terminals for home networking, devices for PC's Gigabit Ethernet interface, and other Gigabit Ethernet devices.

Claims (6)

Matching optical module and RJ-45 connector to one host board connector The Ethernet port matching device of claim 1, wherein the optical module matching device and the RJ-45 matching device that can be mounted in a thread can be selectively implemented in one connector. A device for matching RJ-45 connectors to female connectors, comprising: means for matching an MDI interface to a common connector, means for utilizing some of the connector pins as MDI interface signals in connection with the means, RJ-45 connectors to the connector RJ-45 connector matching device and connector containing the RJ-45 matching board structure and circuit required to match A device for matching an optical module to a female connector, comprising: means for matching a SerDes interface to a common connector, means for utilizing some of the connector pins as SerDes interface signals in connection with the means, and for matching the optical module to the connector Optical module matching device including optical module matching board structure and circuit The optical module RJ-45 integrated matching device according to claim 1, wherein the optical module matching board and the RJ-45 matching board can be implemented as a common board according to separate assignment pins. The matching device according to claim 1, wherein the RJ-45 matching board and the optical module matching board are provided with a case or a guide rail or cage mounted on a host board to facilitate mounting and dismounting from outside the system.