Microchip Technology Inc.

Robert Zakowicz

Lakshmi Narasimhan

Ian Saturley

Ramya Kuppusamy

Riyas Kattukandan

William Mahany

An EtherCAT device with a node for use in an EtherCAT network is disclosed. The EtherCAT device includes: a clock circuit; a clock input to receive an input clock signal; a clock output to send an output clock signal; and control logic. The control logic is to determine whether to operate the EtherCAT device in a clock generation mode or a clock propagation mode, wherein in the clock generation mode, the clock circuit is to drive an oscillator to generate the input clock signal; and in the clock propagation mode, the clock circuit is to receive the input clock signal from another node in the EtherCAT network. The control logic is further to control the clock circuit to output the output clock signal for a subsequent node in the EtherCAT network based upon the input clock signal.

EtherCAT device with clock generation mode and clock propagation mode

An EtherCAT device is disclosed. The EtherCAT device comprises a data input port to receive a signal representing data, the signal representing one of a plurality of possible logical values; and a degradation calculation circuit. The degradation calculation circuit is to read, demodulate, and convert the received signal into a digital domain representation; process the digital domain representation into slices, where the value of the received signal at a respective time is represented in a respective one of the slices; determine differences between the respective slices and reference slices; identify an intended logical value of the received signal responsive to the determined differences; determine a quantification of error at the respective time responsive to the identified logical value and the determined differences; and determine a signal quality index responsive to the determined quantification of error.

EtherCAT device

An EtherCAT device includes a communications circuit and a wakeup circuit. The wakeup circuit is configured to determine a condition in which to send data to an EtherCAT master node. The wakeup circuit, based on such a condition, is configured to generate a wakeup packet. The communications circuit may be configured to receive an EtherCAT frame originating from the EtherCAT master node. The communications circuit may be configured to populate the EtherCAT frame with the data to be sent to the EtherCAT master node. The communications circuit may be configured to send the EtherCAT frame to the EtherCAT master device.

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Chandler, AZ, United States of America

Robert Zakowicz