Real-Time Industrial Ethernet Switch (Low Cost) with RZ/N1S

Customers in the industrial arena often require real-time Ethernet solutions, also called industrial Ethernet. Common standards are EtherCat, Powerlink, Sercos III, ProfiNet, Modbus TCP and others.

For a low-cost Industrial Ethernet switch or similar setup with fewer calculation performance requirements, the RZ/N1S MPU is a perfect fit because of its high integration, rich interfaces and integrated 6MB RAM. The RZ/N1D features an integrated Arm^® Cortex^®-M3 based R-In engine that offloads the main cores by working as a dedicated Gigabit Ethernet hardware RTOS/accelerator. External Flash memory can be attached by using a dedicated, second QSPI interface.

This solution demonstrates that a low-cost industrial Ethernet switch can be produced simply with an RZ/N1S MPU, up to 5 Ethernet PHYs, and a power supply. To power this setup, two precise power rails are required and can easily be achieved using our highly integrated RAA212422 dual-output buck regulator, which features integrated MOSFETs that provide a small PCB footprint solution.

System Benefits:

• Highly integrated, low-cost industrial Ethernet (switch) solution with R-In offload engine/hardware accelerator
• Easy to use, high efficiency dual in/out DC/DC converter, providing all required voltages
• Low BOM count and small PCB space