LAN9253 EtherCAT® Device Controller Evaluation Kit with Arm® Cortex®-M4F Based SAM D51 Microcontroller

Microchip’s next-generation EtherCAT® devices provide enhanced cycle times, higher integration and system-level cost savings for industrial designs. The LAN9253 EtherCAT® Device Controller Evaluation Kit features an Arm® Cortex®-M4F Based SAM D51 microcontroller supported by Microchip’s MPLAB® development environment.

This evaluation platform combines a microcontroller with the LAN9252 or LAN9253 EtherCAT device controllers to demonstrate a pin-compatible migration path between devices.

The LAN9253 is a 2-/3-port EtherCAT device controller with dual integrated Ethernet PHYs supporting full-duplex 100BASE-TX operation. The device can be used to design cost-effective, multi-segment EtherCAT device solutions. It supports HP Auto-MDIX, allowing the use of direct-connect or cross-over LAN cables. It has 8 KB of Dual-Port memory (DPRAM) and eight Fieldbus Memory Management Units (FMMUs). Each FMMU performs the task of mapping logical addresses to physical addresses. The LAN9253 also includes eight SyncManagers to allow the exchange of data between the EtherCAT host and the local application. It supports Distributed Clock operation for high-accuracy precision time. A variety of microcontroller interfaces are available, including SPI and high-speed Quad SPI (QSPI) in a low-pin-count option. The GPIO interfaces can be used to input/output digital signals.

The LAN9253 has an integrated power scheme and requires a single 3.3V supply. Clock replication enables daisy changing between multiple instances of the LAN9253 when more than one ESC device is required on the same board. EtherCAT Slave Information (ESI) EEPROM can be eliminated by using EEPROM emulation mode, which reduces board footprint and system cost. The LAN9253 is available in commercial, industrial, and extended industrial temperature ranges and comes in a standard 64-pin QFN package.