- April 16, 2015
April 16, 2015 - Microchip Technology announced the LAN9252 stand-alone EtherCAT slave controller with two 10/100 Ethernet transceivers that support both fiber and copper, along with cable diagnostics capabilities. The LAN9252 supports traditional Host Bus and SPI/SQI communication, along with standalone digital I/O interfaces, providing system designers the flexibility to select from a wide range of microcontrollers when implementing the real-time EtherCAT communications standard. Additionally, the LAN9252 reduces system complexity and cost for developers using EtherCAT in factory-automation, process-control, motor/motion-control and Internet of Things (IoT) industrial-Ethernet applications.
Fully compliant with the EtherCAT standard and interoperable with all EtherCAT systems, the LAN9252 EtherCAT slave controller includes 4 Kbytes of Dual-Port RAM (DPRAM) and three Fieldbus Memory Management Units (FMMUs). The LAN9252 also features cable diagnostics support that allows field service technicians to rapidly and effectively diagnose line faults and provides for fiber connectivity. This EtherCAT slave controller is available in commercial, industrial and extended industrial temperature ranges, in low pin count and small body size QFN and QFP-EP packages.
To enable development with the LAN9252, two Microchip evaluation boards demonstrate how to interface to the LAN9252 through basic input/output connections, or to microcontrollers such as the 32-bit PIC32MX family via serial communications. A Software Development Kit (SDK) is also available, which further enables developers to immediately start device evaluation and begin building solutions for their applications, allowing them to quickly familiarize themselves with features of the LAN9252. Both boards, part # EVB-LAN9252-HBI and part # EVB-LAN9252-DIGIO, are available now for $300 each.
The LAN9252 EtherCAT slave controller is available now for sampling in 64-pin QFN and QFP-EP packages, starting at $7.01 each, in 10,000-unit quantities.