After five years of work by Microchip and other industry leading vendors, the highly anticipated IEEE 802.3bt 4-pair PoE standard is officially released.

What’s next?

Microchip as a contributor and member of the Ethernet Alliance (EA) takes part in the development of the IEEE 802.3bt (BT) test plan. The BT test plan will become the formal qualifier of any certified Power Source Equipment (PSE) and Powered Device (PD). Such PSEs and PDs that will pass the test, will qualify for the ‘EA Certified’ PoE logo and will be listed in the EA website PoE certified products registry. The test event is planned to take place at the University of New Hampshire Interoperability Lab (UNH-IOL) on February 2019 with two key objectives:

• To qualify the EA IEEE 802.3bt test plan
• Upon a successful test plan qualification, move to formal certification of PoE ICs and PoE system platforms

Microchip will attend and participate with our PoE ICs and system products.

In the Interim, we are updating our IEEE 802.3bt firmware (FW) version to align with the latest test plan drafted by the EA members. The PD69200 BT FW version targeted for the certification event is version 3.4. Preliminary release is available for customers that would accept the possibility of any last-minute changes and would like to participate in the February test event. Formal IEEE 802.3bt FW will be released once we clear EA certification testing.

We are excited and looking forward to supporting you through these designs. You are welcome to share the news with your colleagues and customers. Contact your local Business Unit (BU) marketing/applications team for more details.

I welcome you to connect with me on LinkedIn; I am also happy to answer any questions you may have.

Tags: Ethernet, IEEE 802.3bt, PoE, PoE ICs, Power Over Ethernet