|Publication number||US7447307 B2|
|Application number||US 09/727,111|
|Publication date||Nov 4, 2008|
|Filing date||Nov 29, 2000|
|Priority date||Nov 29, 2000|
|Also published as||US8094808, US20020063584, US20090129583|
|Publication number||09727111, 727111, US 7447307 B2, US 7447307B2, US-B2-7447307, US7447307 B2, US7447307B2|
|Inventors||James Molenda, Maurilio Tazio De Nicolo, Karl Nakamura, Roger Karam|
|Original Assignee||Cisco Technology, Inc.|
|Export Citation||BiBTeX, EndNote, RefMan|
|Patent Citations (34), Non-Patent Citations (2), Referenced by (8), Classifications (5), Legal Events (4)|
|External Links: USPTO, USPTO Assignment, Espacenet|
The present invention relates to a method and an apparatus for detecting the presence of a connected device of a particular class, such as a telephone, that may require phantom power to be supplied over twisted pair wiring. Discovery signals transmitted on ports of a telecommunications device, such as a switch, need to be looped back to the telecommunications device to indicate the presence of the particular connected device (the absence of the particular device being inferred by the absence of the loop back signal). Accordingly, the discovery signal should not be looped back if the device is absent or if a connected device is not of the particular type.
Telephones and other types of data terminal equipment (DTE) are routinely used for voice, data traffic and other forms of telecommunication. Such DTE equipment typically is wired with twisted pair wire to a switch or similar telecommunications device. For example, some communications systems utilize an Ethernet switch in communication with Internet Protocol (IP) or voice over IP (VoIP) telephones. Where the IP telephones are compatible and thus adapted to receive phantom power over the twisted pair connection to the switch, it is desirable for the switch to verify the compatibility before applying the phantom power because it is conceivable that the phantom power could damage or operate improperly with certain non-compatible DTE equipment (“legacy equipment”) which might also be connected to the switch. In accordance with the invention disclosed in co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/710,388 filed Nov. 9, 2000 in the name of inventor Roger Karam and entitled “Method and Apparatus for Detecting a Compatible Phantom Powered Device Using Common Mode Signaling”, commonly owned herewith, a method and apparatus which enable discovery of such compatible telephones by a switch or similar device is taught. This application issued on Oct. 12, 2004 as U.S. Pat. No. 6,804,351. In a nutshell, the approach used is to generate a differential mode signal, apply it to center-taps of transformers coupling the switch to the twisted pair wires, apply the differential mode signal received at center-taps of corresponding transformers at the IP telephone to an identity network, loop the signal (possibly modified by the identity network) back to the switch, and, based on the returned signal (and possibly other considerations), apply or not apply phantom power between the center-taps of the switch-side transformers to power the IP telephone. This approach requires that the IP telephone be configured to “loop back” signals received by it to the switch. This is undesirable for data signals under certain circumstances as it can lead to certain kinds of potential computer network problems. Accordingly, it is desirable in such circumstances to permit loop back of discovery signals only and not data signals. In the past, normally closed mechanical relays at the IP telephone coupled with a low pass filter (LPF) to pass only the discovery signals and not the data signals have been used. Such mechanical relays are relatively expensive and can become unreliable. Low pass filters composed of inductors and capacitors also consume volume in the DTE equipment and can be relatively expensive to deploy.
When relays 62, 70 are energized (e.g., when phantom power supply 34 for port 12 is turned on or another condition controlling relays 62, 70 is met) then the receive signals from differential output lines 64, 66 of winding 82 of transformer 44 are directly applied to the physical layer device (PHY) 84 of IP telephone 38. Similarly this condition causes transmit signals from PHY 84 to be coupled to output winding 80 of transformer 52.
The details of a common low pass filter 68 are shown by way of example in
Relays 62 and 70 and LPF 68 are physically relatively large and tend to be relatively expensive parts. Furthermore, relays can wear out and/or suffer from intermittent failures and are thus not considered to be the most reliable of electronic devices. Accordingly, it is desirable to replace the need for relays and discreet filter components in circuits of this type and to further miniaturize the loop back control circuit.
A method and apparatus provide an IP telephone or similar device with a mechanism to receive and at least briefly loop back discovery signals received from a telecommunications device such as an Ethernet switch while not permitting the loop back of data packet signals. No mechanical relays are required and the circuitry can be fully integrated on an integrated circuit using commonly available techniques, if desired.
The accompanying drawings, which are incorporated into and constitute a part of this specification illustrate one or more embodiments of the invention and, together with the present description, serve to explain the principles and implementations of the invention.
In the drawings:
Embodiments of the present invention are described herein in the context of a method and apparatus for controlling loop back of a differential mode signal through a remote device without the use of a powered circuit or a relay at the remote device. Those of ordinary skill in the art will realize that the following description of the present invention is illustrative only and not intended to be in any way limiting. Other embodiments of the invention will readily suggest themselves to such skilled persons having the benefit of this disclosure. Reference will now be made in detail to a number of implementations of the present invention as illustrated in the accompanying drawings. The same reference numbers will be used throughout the drawings and the following description to refer to the same or like parts.
In the interest of clarity, not all of the routine features of the implementations described herein are described. It will of course be appreciated that in the development of any such actual implementation, numerous implementation-specific decisions must be made to achieve the developer's specific goals, such as compliance with system-and business-related goals and that these goals will vary from one implementation to another. Moreover, it will be appreciated that such a development effort might be complex and time-consuming, but would never the less be a routine undertaking of engineering for those of ordinary skill in the art having the benefit of this disclosure.
The present invention is directed to replacing the prior art circuitry relay and LPF components of the data packet loop back prevention circuit to make a more compact, inexpensive and reliable IP telephone (or similar network device). A primary difficulty which must be overcome is the fact that the IP telephone is likely entirely unpowered during the discovery phase since phantom power will not generally be provided until after the discovery phase is complete. Thus, powered active circuitry cannot normally be used to detect and respond to the discovery signal.
Circuit 84, as shown schematically in
When phantom power is applied to nodes 56 and 58, power processor 86 becomes energized and provides a “PWRUP” signal on line 88. The PWRUP signal on line 88 turns on NPN bipolar transistors Q3 and Q4 by applying a positive voltage to node 88 of voltage divider 90 thus connecting the bases of Q1 and Q12 to ground.
The power processor 86, shown in more detail in
At the same time as PWRUP goes high, because the bases of PNP bipolar transistors Q7 and Q8 are at ground potential through pull down resistor R20 and the emitters of Q7 and Q8 are at PWRUP (node 88) Q7 and Q8 are turned on and hence Q5, the base of which is connected through PNP bipolar transistor Q7 to PWRUP and Q6, the base of which is connected through PNP bipolar transistor Q8 to PWRUP, are both forced off by the application of a relatively high voltage to their respective bases. As a result, when PWRUP appears, the loop back feature promptly turns off. Notably, no local power supply is required to enable this feature and it is powered entirely by signal level power on RX+, RX− with the appearance of phantom power at the network device turning it off.
An alternative specific embodiment of the present invention is shown in
The goal in this version of the circuit is to permit brief loop back for detection purposes and then to shut off the loop back capability after having given the switch sufficient time to accomplish the discovery function. By shutting off the loop back feature promptly, undersirable loop back of data packets is avoided without the use of an LPF.
Another specific embodiment of the present invention is illustrated in the electrical schematic diagram of
Another specific embodiment of the present invention is illustrated in the electrical schematic diagram of
Note that in this circuit loopback operation can be prevented in any of at least three ways: (1) disable only the gate of the NMOS devices in the loopback circuit in both switches (2) disable only the gate of the PMOS devices in the loopback circuit in both switches; (3) disable all gates of the NMOS and PMOS devices in the loopback circuits of both switches.
Accordingly, the circuitry driving TX+ and TX− is disrupted as shown in
Finally, is should be noted that while a number of circuits using bipolar transistor technology have been shown, the concepts of this invention are equally applicable to FET-type transistors as long as they are constructed with thresholds appropriate to the expected signal levels as is well known to these of ordinary skill in the art. Turning now to
Turning now to
Turning now to
Turning now to
Thus, a number of ways have been shown to block undesired loop back of packet traffic. Application of the phantom power signal can be used to disrupt the loop back circuitry stopping the loop back; switches can be turned on by powering their bases/gates by rectified signal current stored in capacitors (resistors to ground provided to discharge the capacitors so that they can reset when a DTE device is disconnected), data can be distorted through voltage and/or phase shifting so that it will not propagate through the transformer or on the twisted pair transmission line. It should also be noted that the transformer winding used to provide RX+, RX− to the PHY need not be the same as that used to drive the circuitry described above so as to avoid affecting the operation of the PHY.
While embodiments and applications of the invention have been shown and described, it would be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art having the benefit of this disclosure that many more modifications than mentioned above are possible without departing from the inventive concepts herein. The invention, therefore, is not to be restricted except in the spirit of the appended claims.
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|International Classification||H04L5/20, H04M1/00|
|Apr 23, 2001||AS||Assignment|
Owner name: CISCO TECHNOLOGY, INC., CALIFORNIA
Free format text: ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST;ASSIGNORS:NICOLO, MAURILIO TAZIO DE;MOLENDA, JAMES;NAKAMURA, KARL;AND OTHERS;REEL/FRAME:011752/0543
Effective date: 20010409
|Feb 24, 2009||CC||Certificate of correction|
|May 4, 2012||FPAY||Fee payment|
Year of fee payment: 4
|May 4, 2016||FPAY||Fee payment|
Year of fee payment: 8