CAN FD Plug Fest Shows Robust Operation of Controller IP Core by CAST and Fraunhofer IPMS

Soft IP Core for CAN FD met or exceeded bit rate and error handling tests in its second plug fest, running in representative automotive networks from Ford and GM

Detroit, Michigan -- April 15 2016 -- The CAN Bus Controller offered by intellectual property provider CAST, Inc. has successfully undergone a second round of real-world-like testing at the CAN Plug Fest run by the CAN in Automation association at Ford’s facility in Detroit.

The CIA CAN FD Plug Fest April 6 and 7 gathered twenty firms to evaluate how well their respective CAN Flexible Data bus protocol products work together in network topologies that emulate actual automobile environments. These rigorous tests of error handling and interoperability go beyond specification conformance to evaluate how well a data link or physical layer CAN controller product might perform in the real world, where robustness is life critical.

Sourced from Fraunhofer IPMS, the CAN-CTRL CAN 2.0 & FD Controller Core is one of the few ASIC RTL and FPGA netlist IP cores to support all current and proposed specifications (CAN 2.0, CAN FD ISO and Bosch, and Time-Triggered TTCAN). It is also the first soft IP core to undergo a second year of CIA Plug Fest testing. It did well last year, and improvements based on that experience helped it exceed even the developer’s expectations in last week’s testing.

“The controller performed very well, with no major issues at higher than standard bit rates and against conformance tests being prepared for the upcoming ISO 16845-2 international standard,“ said Dr. Frank Deicke, business unit manager, Wireless Microsystems, Fraunhofer Institute for Photonic Microsystems (IPMS). “Moreover, we coupled our data link controller core with the latest physical transceivers from On Semi, NXP, and Infineon, and were the only participants using these vendors’ latest CAN FD implementations.”

CAST and IPMS will also participate in the CIA’s June CAN FD Plug Fest in Nuremberg. Read more about the Detroit and Nuremberg events in the CAN Newsletter Online.

The CAN FD Controller IP Core is available now through CAST worldwide, with a reference design board and other development aids plus Verification IP from partner Avery Design Systems. Visit www.cast-inc.com for more information.