Evaluation tools description
AN2451
12/55
Doc ID 12791 Rev 3
Figure 5.
ST7540 powerline modem demonstration kit with control register window
The complete chain, controlled by the ST7540 powerline modem demonstration kit, can set
up real communication at bit level, simply by sending or receiving a user-defined bit stream.
It is possible to establish a half-duplex communication with two of these communication
nodes (two chains) connected to each other. In order to better evaluate communication
between two nodes, the ST7540 powerline modem demonstration kit has some particular
features, including:
●
Frame synchronization: a byte synchronization header can be added to the to the
exchanged data to set up a simple protocol, intended to test the capability of the
system to correctly receive the exact transmitted bit sequence. This can be done in two
ways: via the ST7540 control register settings (the internal configuration register of the
modem has a frame header field, in which an 8- or 16-bit header can be set) or via the
Rx panel of the ST7540 powerline modem demonstration kit (setting a synchronization
at SW level). A bit synchronization can be introduced as a simpler feature by enabling
the preamble detection method in the control register panel and then inserting at least
one “0101” or one “1010” sequence at the beginning of the transmitted bit stream.
●
Ping session: a master-slave communication with automatic statistics calculation can
be very useful to test a point-to-point or a point-to-multipoint powerline communication
network, thus providing a method to evaluate reachability of each node in the network.
For further details about the ST7540 powerline modem demonstration kit, please refer
to the user manual UM0239 “ST7540 power line modem demo kit graphical user
interface”.
