CAN/CAN-FD/CAN-XL/LIN Or Automotive Ethernet
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CAN/CAN-FD/CAN-XL/LIN Or Automotive Ethernet
Technology Choice Depends on Application
An Automotive Ethernet Tip
CAN/CAN-FD/CAN-XL/LIN
CAN/CAN-FD and LIN have been used in automotive in-vehicle applications for many years. They are robust, reliable, and relatively cheap interfaces that work extremely well. There will still be a place for CAN/LIN buses in a modern and connected car, but they will not be used as a backbone of the communication as an ECU interconnect.
Automotive Ethernet
The need for higher data rates and bandwidth for in-vehicle-networks makes those traditional technologies less than ideal to use as a communication backbone for advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) -rich vehicles. Automotive Ethernet with its low latency and high bandwidth becomes important for many emerging applications.
More testing
Automotive Ethernet unlike CAN/LIN buses requires compliance testing. The IEEE and OPEN Alliance have created and maintained physical layer standards for all data rates within Automotive Ethernet from 10BASE-T1S to 10GBASE-T1 and emerging standards covering 25, 50 even 100Gbps.
Faster test equipment
The bandwidth delta between the two technologies is significant: 10 Gbps for the fastest of the automotive Ethernet standards vs 10 Mbps for CAN-XL. This is the difference between a $3K 100 MHz oscilloscope + $1K software and $250K 16 GHz oscilloscope + $15K software. It is undoubtedly a bigger investment, with measurements of higher complexity where S-parameters and jitter analysis are required.
Continued speed increases
Another benefit of the automotive Ethernet standard is that it will continue to grow with the market and technology. IEEE released the 2.5/5/10 Gbps standard in 2020, and >10 Gbps standards in electrical or optical media is being discussed today.
Summary
Automotive Ethernet will be the backbone of the future car – with enough bandwidth and data rate to meet the requirements of demanding technologies of autonomous driving and ADAS. Unlike CAN/LIN buses, it will require compliance testing to make sure they perform adequately to support safety-critical systems. Are you ready to test automotive Ethernet?