Does UbiSwitch + UbiSwitch Baseboard Mini meet safety requirements of IEC62368-1 ED.2 + A11 or IEEE802.3-2005 clause 40.6.1.1?
I’ll refer to the IEEE802.3-2005 clause 40.6.1.1 question.
As described in the clause, there are two cases for this clause.
Case 1
Case 1 is where the PHY encompasses the power interface of a powered device within the media independent interface. Let’s unpack this… What this means is that the PHY itself is powered over the same conductors that are used for the data. This is PoE (Power over Ethernet).
In this case, all ports (PHYs) must be isolated from all other ports, and also isolated from any external conductors, including frame ground (what we might call chassis ground, or whether the metal casing of the device is grounded to).
Case 2
Case two is where the PHY does not encompass the power interface of a powered device. In other words, the port is not using Power over Ethernet (PoE), and power is supplied to the device in some other way.
In this case, all ports must still also be isolated from each other and from frame ground, but they don’t have to be isolated from all other conductors on the device.
UbiSwitch + UbiSwitch Baseboard Mini does not use PoE, it is powered from a seperate DC supply, so it falls into case 2. So the question is whether the ports on UbiSwitch + UbiSwitch Baseboard Mini are all isolated from each other.
Finally, the specific type of isolation must be at least one of the three types described in the clause.
UbiSwitch Baseboard Mini contains compact ethernet transformers between each port. Below is a snippet from the datasheet of these transformers.
These transformers are rated to withstand the following electrical strength tests:
- 1500 VAC, 60 sec
- 2400V, 1.2/50us
In other words, these transformers meet points tests a and c as defined in the clause. This is to be expected, as the transformers we use are designed for use in ethernet.
Nearly all our boards meet this standard, apart from GigaBlox Nano, which is by design, as it is transformerless.