Texas Instruments has introduced the TCAN6062, a Controller Area Network extended data-field length, or CAN XL, transceiver aimed at industrial networking applications including humanoid robots, industrial robots and human-machine interface systems. The company says it is the first commercially available CAN XL transceiver.
The TCAN6062 supports payloads of up to 2,048 bytes per frame and data rates of up to 20Mbps. In robotic and other industrial systems, the higher bandwidth is intended to support motion control, sensor feedback, diagnostics and other data while allowing time-sensitive messages to be prioritised.
The device is backward compatible with CAN flexible data rate, or CAN FD, and supports CAN signal improvement capability, known as CAN SIC. This allows existing CAN-based designs to migrate to CAN XL without replacing the entire network architecture.
Texas Instruments said the transceiver can also be used in mixed CAN and Ethernet networks through TCP/IP tunnelling. This enables diagnostics, sensor data, control traffic and over-the-air updates to be carried over the same network infrastructure.
CAN XL is designed to increase the bandwidth and payload capacity available through CAN-based communications while retaining features such as message prioritisation and deterministic communication. The physical-layer specification is covered by ISO 11898-2:2024.
The TCAN6062’s signal improvement capability is designed to reduce signal ringing in networks with multiple nodes. Texas Instruments said the technology can reduce ringing by as much as 80%. The device also supports a range of input and output voltages and provides protection of up to ±58V.
Texas Instruments engineers participated in the CAN in Automation technical group involved in developing the CAN XL physical-layer specification.
Holger Zeltwanger, managing director of CAN in Automation, said the availability of a commercial CAN SIC XL transceiver would make the technology accessible to engineers implementing the standard.
Arthur Mutter, chairman of the CAN XL Special Interest Group at CAN in Automation and a senior executive for networking technologies at Bosch, said CAN XL could support data rates of up to 20 Mbit/s and be used for applications spanning industrial systems, robotics and automotive safety.
The TCAN6062 expands Texas Instruments’ CAN transceiver range, which also includes devices supporting CAN FD and CAN SIC.
