The growth of the industrial automation market is driving innovative technologies such as machine learning (ML) and robotic systems. Solutions that integrate deterministic communication are essential for industrial automation applications to control, monitor, and process data. To provide designers with a reliable and robust network solution featuring deterministic communication, Microchip Technology announces its next-generation LAN969x Ethernet switches with Time Sensitive Networking (TSN), bandwidths from 46 Gbps to 102 Gbps, and a powerful CPU with a 1 GHz Arm® Cortex®-A53 core. For applications requiring enhanced redundancy, the LAN969x Ethernet switches can be configured with HSR (High-Availability Seamless Redundancy) and PRP (Parallel Redundancy Protocol). HSR and PRP are hardware protocols that provide lossless redundancy in Ethernet networks. The LAN969x Ethernet switches are compatible with various types of HSR and PRP Redundancy Boxes (RedBoxes) that can operate in parallel and serial configurations, achieving Ethernet port speeds from 10 Mbps to 10 Gbps.
The LAN969x can implement QuadBox, a feature that interconnects two HSR networks and is especially useful in applications requiring high reliability and zero downtime. Other solutions on the market that implement QuadBox typically require several different components, which can increase design complexity and system costs.
“Before the introduction of Microchip’s LAN969x Ethernet switches, customers who wanted to implement TSN and HSR/PRP functions needed multiple integrated circuits. Microchip’s new LAN969x solution consists of a single chip, which can reduce the number of components and system costs,” said Charles Forni, vice president of Microchip’s USB and Networking business unit.
“These devices are also compatible with our VSC6817SDK IStaX Linux® application software suite, which enables designers to bring their products to market quickly.”.
The LAN969x Ethernet switches are highly configurable with up to 30 ports. The Ethernet ports support numerous interfaces, including RGMII, SGMII, QSGMII, USGMII, and USXGMII. The LAN969x family is designed for secure and security-critical applications requiring high-port 10M/100M/1G/2.5G/10G links.
The LAN969x family comes with security features such as secure boot and secure firmware execution, depending on the customer's root of trust manufacturing process. Security is provided through TCAM (Ternary Content Addressable Memory) frame processing using a VCAP (Versatile Content Aware Processor), Arm's Trusted Firmware methodology for secure and fast booting, encryption libraries and hardware security accelerators for boot and code encryption, and immutable, one-time programmable key storage.
The new LAN969x family of midrange Ethernet switches completes Microchip's TSN switch lineup. The SparX-5i family supports up to 64 ports and 200 Gbps of switching bandwidth, while the LAN9662 and LAN9668 models support between 4 and 8 ports and bandwidths of 4 to 11 Gbps.
Development Tools:
The LAN969x Ethernet switch family is supported by the EV23X71A evaluation card. Other resources include the IStaX VSC6817SDK Linux application software package for TSN compliance and HSR/PRP redundancy.
