Sep 13, 2017 
KDPOF – leading supplier for automotive gigabit connectivity over POF (Plastic Optical Fiber) – is proud to announce the shipment of the first automotive grade Gigabit Ethernet POF (GEPOF) transceiver KD1053 devices to carmakers and their Tier1 suppliers. The first public demonstration will be at the VDI Congress ELIV "ELectronics In Vehicles" on October 18-19, 2017 at the World Conference Center in Bonn, Germany. "The production start of our automotive POF transceiver marks a significant milestone on our path to make automotive gigabit Ethernet a reality," stated Carlos Pardo, CEO and Co-founder of KDPOF. "It is the first fully integrated automotive transceiver to implement the physical layer of Gigabit Ethernet over POF." KDPOF provides comprehensive support equipment such as application notes, reference design, evaluation boards and kits in order to enable users a fast and easy design start. Automotive applications with the KD1053 include 100 Mbps and 1 Gbps Ethernet links such as battery management systems (BMS), inter-domain communications backbones, antenna hubs, autonomous driving, and ADAS with surround view.
The KD1053 fully meets the requirements of carmakers by providing high connectivity with a flexible digital host interface, low latency, low jitter, and low linking time. In addition, it complies with the new standard amendment IEEE Std 802.3bv™ for gigabit Ethernet over POF, defining physical layer specifications and management parameters for automotive, industrial, and home networking applications utilizing POF. The standard amendment responded to the demand for high-speed Ethernet solutions. Plastic optical fiber provides unique capabilities for applications where long link lengths are not required. POF technology outplays copper solutions not only in electromagnetic compatibility and immunity, but also provides galvanic isolation, lower weight, and low cost.
