Microchip Technology has introduced its latest LAN969x family of Ethernet switches, catering to the growing demands of the industrial automation market. The next-generation switches feature Time Sensitive Networking (TSN), offering scalable port bandwidths ranging from 46 Gbps to 102 Gbps, along with a robust 1 GHz single-core Arm Cortex-A53 CPU.
Addressing the need for deterministic communication in industrial automation applications, the LAN969x switches provide designers with a reliable and robust network solution. Notably, these switches support High-availability Seamless Redundancy (HSR) and Parallel Redundancy Protocol (PRP), hardware protocols ensuring zero-loss redundancy in Ethernet networks.
The LAN969x family accommodates multiple HSR and PRP Redundancy Box (RedBox) instances that operate in parallel and in series, offering flexibility at Ethernet port speeds from 10 Mbps to 10 Gbps. A notable feature is the QuadBox functionality, allowing the connection of two HSR networks, which proves advantageous in applications where high reliability and zero downtime are critical.
Charles Forni, Vice President of Microchip’s USB and networking business unit, emphasized the significance of Microchip’s LAN969x solution, stating it reduces the number of components and system-level costs compared to previous solutions.
The highly configurable LAN969x switches support up to 30 ports, offering multiple interfaces, including RGMII, SGMII, QSGMII, USGMII, and USXGMII. Targeting secure and safety-critical applications, the LAN969x family addresses the need for high-port-count 10M/100M/1G/2.5G/10G switching links.
Security features are integrated into the LAN969x family, including options for secure boot and secure firmware execution based on the customer’s root-of-trust manufacturing process. Security is further enhanced through Ternary Content Addressable Memory (TCAM)-based frame processing, Arm Trusted Firmware methodology, crypto libraries, hardware security accelerators, and one-time programmable immutable key storage.
The LAN969x switches complement Microchip’s existing portfolio of TSN switches. The SparX-5i family supports up to 64 ports and 200 Gbps of switching bandwidth, while the LAN9662 and LAN9668 cater to applications with 4 to 8 ports and 4 to 11 Gbps of switch bandwidth.
For developers, the LAN969x family is supported by the EV23X71A Evaluation Board and the IStaX VSC6817SDK Linux Application Software Package, facilitating the implementation of TSN standards and HSR/PRP redundancy.
The LAN9694, LAN9696, and LAN9698 models are available for purchase.
