First CAN FD Bus Controller IP Core for ASICs & FPGAs Available Now from CAST

Semiconductor intellectual property provider CAST, Inc. is now shipping what it believes is the first available CAN Bus Controller soft IP core that supports the recent CAN Flexible Data specification.

Sourced from Fraunhofer IPMS, the revised product adds FD support to the CAN 2.0 controller core CAST has carried for several years. The core’s FD extension completely supports the CAN with Flexible Data-Rate Specification released by Bosch in April 2012. This improved data link layer protocol significantly increases bandwidth, making the CAN bus suitable for the greater demands of modern automotive, industrial control, and other systems. As provisioned by the spec, the new core imposes no changes on the physical layer, allowing the gradual updating of existing CAN networks with CAN FD capacities.

“CAN FD makes the stability and reliability benefits of the CAN bus available to designers of today’s more data-hungry systems, and we’re excited to be the first delivering this capability in an easy to use and integrate soft core via our partnership with Fraunhofer,” said Nikos Zervas, chief operating officer for CAST. “The flexibility and performance of this royalty-free CAN controller core have already helped some fifty customers get to market on time and on budget, and we expect this FD option to help many more.”

The CAN Controller 2.0/FD IP core is available in VHDL or Verilog source code, or FPGA netlists. Deliverables include scripts and a testbench for basic verification; work is underway with Avery Design Systems for a complete suite of CAN FD-compatible Verification IP.

CAST, Inc. is a 20-year-old developer, integrator, and aggregator of IP cores and subsystems. The company’s royalty-free product line features 8- and 32-bit controllers and processors with peripherals; video and image compression codecs; and graphics, encryption, interconnect, and interface IP for quickly building complete systems. See www.cast-inc.com for product details.