Signal improvement capability transceivers.

CAN FD, the next CAN generation, will be used heavily in future passenger cars. Market-leading automakers will migrate from Classical CAN to CAN FD. In order to improve the use of CAN FD networks, CiA has developed their SIC (signal improvement capability) transceivers. CAN in Automation (CiA) has released the CiA 601-4 specification standardizing these SIC transceivers recently.

“It is an important step for the automotive industry to use CAN FD also in hybrid topology networks at high bit-rates,” said Holger Zeltwanger, CiA Managing Director. “SIC transceivers from several manufacturers will be available, soon.” The released document specifies also the EMC (electromagnetic compatibility) testing."

CAN FD as specified in ISO 11898-1:2015 allows bit-rates higher than 1 Mbit/s in the data-phase of the data frame. The achievable bit-rate depends on the network topology and the selected physical layer components such as cable and connectors. Using pure bus-line topologies enables bit-rates of 2 Mbit/s respectively 5 Mbit/s. In order to enable the use of not ideal topologies, the data-phase bit-rate needs to be lowered. Another option is to use so-called SIC (signal improvement capability) transceivers, which suppress the ringing causes by the not optimized network topology. These SIC transceivers are specified in CiA 601-4. There are two implementations available: one suppresses the ringing when transmitting; the other filters the ringing when receiving.

#automotive #Standards @CANopen