CAN FD is set and CAN XL is in the pipeline

About 800 automotive engineers participated in the two-day event organized by VDI. In the accompanying exhibition STMicroelectronics demonstrated a CAN FD Light example.

The Eliv conference and exhibition took place on October 20 and 21. It was attended by about 800 people; about 100 participated only online. The conference program comprised more than 80 papers covering innovations and trends in vehicle electronics. Dr. Rolf Zoeller, Director Smart Connected Vehicle Porsche and Managing Director Porsche Digital, chairs the program committee. Holger Zeltwanger, CiA Managing Director, reported about the technical features of CAN XL, the third generation of CAN protocols. He also provided an update on the specifications currently under development within CiA technical groups. First-hand information about the CAN XL plugfest was given, too.

Several of the more than 60 exhibitors showed products with CAN FD interfaces. Vigem presented its CCA 9010-100 data logger featuring four CAN FD ports. Goepel exhibited its Basiccon 4055 CAN FD disturbance and trigger tool. The OBC7 on-board charger comes also with CAN FD connectivity as well as the Ajunic controller by AVL designed for autonomous driving applications. Silicon Mobility presented in Bonn, the former capital of Germany, the T222 field programmable control unit (FPCU) coming with two on-chip CAN FD cores. The company offers inverter application software support for this chip. Most of the CAN offering exhibitors expect that the next car generation will be equipped with multiple CAN FD networks. Recently, CiA has released the version 2.1.0 of CiA 601-4 document specifying the CAN SIC transceiver, which is capable to suppress ringing on the network lines. This improved CAN physical layer approach, will increase the acceptance of CAN FD.

On the Eliv exhibition, STMicroelectronics presented a CAN FD Light solution for smart car lightning solutions. The company is negotiating with other chipmakers second source implementations. CAN FD Light is specified in CiA 604-1.

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