The newly announced LAN9252 from Microchip is a highly-integrated stand-alone EtherCAT slave controller featuring two 10/100 PHYs. Its dual 10/100 Ethernet transceivers support both fiber and copper and include cable diagnostic capabilities. The device supports traditional Host Bus and SPI/SQI™ communication, along with standalone digital I/O interfaces allowing it to operate alongside a wide range of microcontrollers to implement the real-time EtherCAT communications standard. The LAN9252 can reduce system complexity and costs for developers using EtherCAT in factory-automation, process-control, motor/motion-control and Internet of Things (IoT) industrial-Ethernet applications.

The device is fully compliant with the EtherCAT standard and interoperable with all EtherCAT systems and includes 4 Kbytes of Dual-Port RAM (DPRAM) and three Fieldbus Memory Management Units (FMMUs). It is available in commercial, industrial and extended industrial temperature ranges, in low pin count and small body size QFN and QFP-EP packages.

For system development support Microchip has also announced two evaluation boards supporting various system architectures. These hardware systems demonstrate how to interface to the LAN9252 using basic I/Os and also using serial communications with microcontrollers. A Software Development Kit (SDK) is available to facilitate system evaluation and solution building for specific applications. Both evaluation boards, part # EVB-LAN9252-HBI and part # EVB-LAN9252-DIGIO, are available now for $300 each via any Microchip sales representative or authorized worldwide distributor. Click here to view the press release.