LP-AM243: Does it support EtherCAT 1000BASE-T?

qiang xu

Part Number: LP-AM243

Hi Ti,

Does the LP-AM243 support EtherCAT 1000BASE-T? If it does, can it be achieved using the software provided in ind_comms_sdk_am243x_09_01_00_03\examples\industrial_comms\ethercat_slave_demo? I found that the current speed using ethercat_slave_demo is 100M. Are there any configurations that need to be changed? Or should I use a different project?

Thanks
Regards
Qiang

12 months ago

0 Prajith Jayarajan 12 months ago

TI__Expert 7325 points

HI Qiang,

The EtherCAT device can support 100M only.

Regards,
Prajith

0 qiang xu 12 months ago in reply to Prajith Jayarajan

Prodigy 90 points

Hi Prajith,

Could you please point out where it states that? It's clearly specified that only a 100Mbps EtherCAT is supported? From what I've read in the documentation, the AM243x Industrial Communications support speeds of 10/100/1Gbps.

Thanks
Regards
Qiang

0 qiang xu 12 months ago in reply to qiang xu

Prodigy 90 points

Hi Prajith,

Further explanation: I tested two SDKs and found that the MCU-PLUS-SDK supports 1000M, while the INDUSTRIAL-COMMUNICATIONS-SDK supports 100M. The projects used correspond to enet_icssg_tas_am23x-lp*** and ethercat_slave_simple***/ethernetip_adapter_generic_device_rgmii*** respectively. I understand that for INDUSTRIAL-COMMUNICATIONS to support 1000M, is there some configuration needed? Even if EtherCAT doesn't support 1000M, shouldn't Ethernet IP support it? I see that LP-AM243x uses ICSS G, which should have the capability for 1000M. I'm now very puzzled as to why EtherCAT doesn't support 1000M.

Thanks
Regards
Qiang

0 Prajith Jayarajan 12 months ago in reply to qiang xu

TI__Expert 7325 points

HI Qiang,

The ICSSG is capable of doing 1 Gbps speed. As you mentioned in the earlier post, this is supported in Switch and MAC examples in MCU SDK

Regarding Industrial Protocols, we do support 100M speed only (EthernetIP / EtherCAT, HSR /PRP and Profinet (9.2 SDK)) . We also support HSR 1G on AM64x in Linux SDK

Could you explain what is the requirement here?

Regards,
Prajith

0 qiang xu 12 months ago in reply to Prajith Jayarajan

Prodigy 90 points

Hi Prajith,

Because I saw that LP-AM243 uses PRU_ICSSG, it should support gigabit speed. I want to use gigabit EtherCAT. From your response, does it mean the hardware currently supports it, but the software doesn't? Or does it mean gigabit EtherCAT is not supported in any case?

Thanks
Regards
Qiang

0 qiang xu 12 months ago in reply to qiang xu

Prodigy 90 points

Hi Prajith,

I guess the physical layer supports gigabit, but the data link layer (Beckhoff's ESC) doesn't support it?

Thanks
Regards
Qiang

0 PratheeshGangadhar 12 months ago in reply to qiang xu

TI__Mastermind 46381 points

EtherCAT G specs are not available yet for implementation from ETG. TI ESC implementation is aligning to ET1100 feature set today.

0 qiang xu 11 months ago in reply to PratheeshGangadhar

Prodigy 90 points

Hi PratheeshGangadhar,

Can EtherCAT be mixed with traditional Ethernet?

Thanks
Regards
Qiang

0 Jim Mrowca 11 months ago in reply to qiang xu

Genius 3592 points

EtherCAT is sort of UDP based and differs greatly from either UDP or TCP/IP based GbE. Look at ETG website.

0 PratheeshGangadhar 11 months ago in reply to Jim Mrowca

TI__Mastermind 46381 points

qiang xu said:
Can EtherCAT be mixed with traditional Ethernet?

Not physically in network. Ethernet Over EtherCAT (EoE). Refer to ETG_Brochure_EN.pdf (ethercat.org)

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LP-AM243: Does it support EtherCAT 1000BASE-T?