Microchip has added the LAN9353, LAN9354, and LAN9355 three-port 10/100 industrial Ethernet switches to its portfolio of reliable, high-quality, and high-performance Ethernet solutions, including Ethernet switches, controllers, bridges, and PHYs.
These highly integrated Ethernet switches have the IEEE 1588-2008 Precision Time Protocol (PTP) standard, which can achieve clock accuracy in the sub-nanosecond range, thereby reducing the host CPU's synchronization and communication processing load. Developers can also take advantage of advanced features such as transparent clocks to improve system accuracy. Other features designed to reduce overall system power consumption include: Energy Efficient Ethernet (IEEE 802.3az) and Wake on LAN. These switches can develop advanced hardware in the fast-growing industrial Ethernet market, including automation, motion control, embedded, automotive, security / surveillance and telecommunications applications.
LAN9353 / 4/5 10/100 Ethernet switches support widely adopted industry standards such as MII (Media Independent Interface), RMII (Reduced Media Independent Interface), SMI (Serial Management Interface), Turbo MII, I2C and SPI / SQI Communication interface, as well as digital I / O. This gives system designers the flexibility to choose from a variety of microcontrollers, system-on-chips (SoCs) or processors to interface with this new switch family.
Ethernet connections are already ubiquitous in communications and networking products. This well-known technology provides a powerful link to ensure reliable communication between devices on the network. To ensure easy installation and network expansion and minimal maintenance, these switches also support 100BASE-FX fiber and copper cables, as well as cable diagnostics, allowing system designers and their end users to determine open, short, fault length, and cable lengths for cables Provides a cost-effective way to extend Ethernet networks over long distances.
In order to utilize the LAN9353 / 4/5 three-port 10/100 Ethernet switch for development, three Microchip evaluation boards are also announced today that support a variety of system architectures. The hardware system demonstrates how to interface with a switch through a basic input / output connection, or how to interface with a microcontroller such as a 32-bit PIC32MX family through serial communication. Software development kits (SDKs) also support these new evaluation boards, which allows developers to begin device evaluation immediately, become familiar with features, and start building solutions for their applications. The company says all three evaluation boards are available now.
