Industrial automation and digital transformation are driving market growth for scalable and standardised networking solutions to address the needs of commercial Operational Technology (OT) deployments. To provide automation manufacturers with a comprehensive networking solution, Microchip Technology announced the LAN9662 Gigabit Ethernet Switch with four ports, Audio-Video Bridging and Time Sensitive Network (AVB/TSN), two integrated 10/100/1000BASE-T PHYs and a 600 MHz Arm^® Cortex^®-A7 CPU subsystem.

To support industrial Ethernet applications, the LAN9662 features a real-time Engine (RTE) that provides the ability to modify the Ethernet frame in flight, enabling faster cyclical data rates and low latency. The LAN9662 is compliant with key industry standards such as the OPC Unified Architecture (OPC/UA) and PROFINET software stack, offering deterministic communication capabilities necessary for industrial networking applications.    

“Expanding on the LAN966x family, the LAN9662 opens a path to scale with TSN-enabled networking endpoints,” said Charles Forni, vice president of Microchip’s USB and networking business unit. “Our solutions offer customers the advantage of starting their designs with industry standards met, supported by a comprehensive software portfolio.”

With two integrated PHYs, the LAN9662 provides extremely low latency to support various daisy chain topologies. The PHY interfaces enable fast data processing within a specified time to provide a reliable network for automation applications such as motor, conveyor and multi-axis robot controllers. 

The LAN9662 supports up to two RGMII/RMII, up to two 1000BASE-X/SerDes/2.5GBASE-X/KX, and a Quad-SGMII/Quad-USGMII interface. The configurable interfaces allow designers to reach various types of physical layers or interconnects they may require.

Microchip is an established supplier of industrial-grade networking solutions, offering a broad portfolio of robust, energy efficient and highly integrated products with deterministic switching and fault-tolerant redundancy. Its products significantly reduce the complexity and overhead of deploying Ethernet across a variety of industrial applications. To learn more about Microchip’s Ethernet solutions, click here.

Development Tools

The LAN9662 is supported by Microchip’s Switch API, the EVB-LAN9662 and the EVB-LAN9662-Carrier Board. Software support is also offered through Platform BSP, Linux^® Switchdev and PROFINET Software Stack.

Microchip is represented in South Africa by Altron Arrow. Email aathanasiou@arrow.altech.co.za for more information.