EtherCAT Follower Peripheral Module from IXXAT

EtherCAT® industrial Ethernet protocol is one of the fastest growing, Ethernet-based communication protocols used in industrial control systems.

Hardware

The TWR-ETHERCAT-SLV EtherCAT follower module is developed and owned by IXXAT Automation GmbH for use in the Tower^® System. This module eases EtherCAT follower node development for the majority of NXP^® processors supported by the Tower System. It features the ET1100 EtherCAT ASIC from Beckhoff Automation GmbH, and is compatible with any Tower System MCU or MPU module that has a serial peripheral interface (SPI). It is also possible to connect non-Tower development boards using extra connectors on the module.

The module can be ordered directly from the NXP web site, but is delivered and supported by IXXAT. Supplementary hardware support and development can also be requested directly from IXXAT. For more information about the module and IXXAT hardware development services, please visit the IXXAT website.

Software

An EtherCAT follower sample software image, developed and supported by rt-labs, provides a quick start for developing EtherCAT followers on the Kinetis^® Tower System. The first available sample software targets the Kinetis K60 microcontroller with the TWR-EtherCAT-SLV module. It supports CANOpen over EtherCAT (CoE) and both input and output process data objects (PDO) for reading the on-board buttons and controlling the on-board LEDs. This software can easily port to other NXP processors. To acquire this software and support, or for more information about supported platforms and rt-labs software development services, please visit ethercat.rt-labs.com.