- Xilinx ZynqUP MPSoC with integrated ARM Cortex-A53/-R5 cores and programmable logic
- Scalable number of EtherCAT slaves in MTCA
- 1x SFP as GPIO of FPGA (LVDS or single-ended I/O) at front panel
- 8x 100Mbit Ethernet via RJ45 to EtherCAT network at front panel
- GbE, PCIe x1, and TCLKA-D towards the backplane
NAT-AMC-ZYNQUP-ECAT
Economic bridge between EtherCAT and MTCA in double-width AMC form factor
- Xilinx ZynqUP MPSoC with integrated ARM Cortex-A53/-R5 cores and programmable logic
- Scalable number of EtherCAT slaves in MTCA
- 1x SFP as GPIO of FPGA (LVDS or single-ended I/O) at front panel
- 8x 100Mbit Ethernet via RJ45 to EtherCAT network at front panel
- GbE, PCIe x1, and TCLKA-D towards the backplane
Description
The NAT-AMC-ZYNQUP-ECAT integrates any embedded system based on the MTCA standard as a slave node in an EtherCAT network.
EtherCAT is the abbreviation for “Ethernet for Control Automation Technology”. This standard is crucial in a broad range of industrial automation applications. Goal of EtherCAT is to have a low price, high speed real-time field bus system with very short cycle times and exact synchronization. It is completely compliant to the current Ethernet standard, but does not have the latency and overhead issues of standard Ethernet.
An EtherCAT network has an EtherCAT Master, which controls the network of several EtherCAT slave devices. To operate an MTCA system as the EtherCAT master, only a standard CPU AMC module running the Master EtherCAT software and standard Ethernet are mandatory.
An EtherCAT slave like the NAT-AMC-ZYNQUP-ECAT adds and drops information on the fly in real time into the EtherCAT bit stream. Technically feasible are up to 65535 EtherCAT slaves with a distance of up to 100m to each other. The topology of the field bus network can be line, star, and branch.
Core of the NAT-AMC-ZYNQUP-ECAT is a XILINX Zynq Ultrascale+ (for better readability: ZynqUP). This so-called MPSoC combines the best of two worlds. An FPGA portion (so-called PL – Programmable Logic) for time-critical, massive parallel processing and ARM CPU cores (PS – Processing System) for higher-level software tasks. The MPSoC comes with 4 GB DDR4 RAM and QSPI FLASH. Towards the backplane, it links by dual GbE, dual x2 PCIe, and various (M)LVDS connections.
Due to its 4 pairs of RJ45 connectors, the NAT-AMC-ZYNQUP-ECAT can even serve four different EtherCAT networks as slave node. The assignment is user-defined and handled by the MPSoC.
Additionally, the NAT-AMC-ZYNQUP-ECAT features an SFP-Connector at the front plate as general purpose I/O. A Micro-USB jack serves as serial- and JTAG-Interface.
Key Features
- AMC form factor, double full- or mid-size
Processing Resources
- Xilinx Zynq Ultrascale+ MPSoC
- Memory
- 4GB, 64 bit-wide DDR4 RAM
- 1Gbit QSPI NOR-FLASH
- MicroSD-Card
- Atmel ATxMega128 MMC
- 8x Microchip KSZ8061MNG Ethernet PHY
- SI5338 Differential Clock Generator PLL
Front Panel Connectivity
- 8x 100Mbit Ethernet via RJ45
- SFP as GPIO of FPGA (LVDS or single-ended I/O)
- JTAG to USB and UART
- 5 Status LEDs (red/green)
- Status / Fault / Hot-Swap LEDs
Backplane Connectivity
Order Codes
NAT-AMC-ZYNQUP-ECAT- [Option]
| – | Xilinx Zynq Ultrascale+ FPGA based double-width AMC module, dependent on ring or star topology supporting 4 or 8 EtherCAT slaves via front panel I/O which includes eight RJ45 sockets, one miniUSB and one SFP port. |
Solutions / Applications
MTCA systems as slave devices of an EtherCAT network can be used for image and sensor preprocessing, or for complex control applications such as robotics. In addition, EtherCAT also allows the transfer of standard Ethernet packets. Therefore, all the new features of remote control and management functions of MTCA systems can be used over the same cable.