2.5 PHY PLC Service

There are several blocks in the PHY PLC service:

  • Application Interface: The API provides a set of functions to access the physical medium and different parameters relative to each communication stack
  • Host Interface: This block is in charge of managing the communication with the PL360 Host Controller through SPI. It is responsible for parsing/serializing the SPI data, managing PLC data regions and providing control on PLC Interruption PIO
  • Coupling: This block contains the hardware configuration associated to the reference design provided by Microchip. If a customer needs to change this configuration to adapt it to its own design, Microchip provides a specific tool called the PHY Calibration Tool which helps customers calculate the best values for all coupling parameters. For further details, refer to the PL360 Physical Calibration document
  • TX Chain: The TX chain is responsible for handling messages from upper layers (passed through the API) to the physical output. This block controls all drivers relative to transmission and adapts signal parameters in order to use functionalities of the transmission chain PHY Utils block: convolutional encoder, scrambler, interleaver, modulator, IFFT and interpolator. In addition, it handles the result of the transmission in order to report it to upper layers through the API
  • RX Chain: The RX chain is responsible for handling messages from the physical input to upper layers (passed through the API). This block checks if the PLC signal is present on the PLC medium, synchronizes with this PLC signal and drives the signal through functionalities of the reception chain in the PHY Utils block: decimator, FFT, demodulator, deinterleaver, descrambler and Viterbi block. In addition, it builds the complete message and reports it to upper layers through the API
  • Shared Memory: This block defines the structure of the data memory to avoid collisions between TX and RX chains
  • Zero Cross: The Zero Cross is responsible for calculating the last Zero Cross value and providing it to the PLC communication stack in use. For further information, refer to Zero-Crossing Configuration
  • PHY Utils: This block contains several functionalities used by the TX/RX chains