Communication technologies

Communication standards such as CAN, CAN FD, CAN XL, and LIN have formed the backbone of modern applications in vehicles and industrial automation for many years. Each of these technologies addresses specific requirements — from robust basic communication to higher bit rates and larger payloads, through to future-oriented architectures and cost-effective solutions for simple networks. The following pages provide an overview of the key characteristics, application areas, and advantages of each protocol.

CAN

Controller Area Network — the vehicle communication standard since 1983. Up to 1 Mbit/s, 8 data bytes.

CAN FD

Flexible bit rate, frames up to 64 bytes of data, up to 8 Mbit/s in the data phase.

CAN XL

Frames up to 2,048 bytes, 20 Mbit/s, CANsec security, VCID virtual networks.

LIN

Local Interconnect Network — economical single-wire bus for sensors and actuators, 20 kbit/s.

Automotive Ethernet

100BASE-T1, 1000BASE-T1 — high bit rate over a single twisted pair for connected vehicles.

FlexRay

Deterministic redundant bus up to 10 Mbit/s for critical x-by-wire applications.

EtherCAT

Real-time industrial Ethernet — on-the-fly processing, latency <100 µs.

Protocols

ISO-TP, UDS, CCP, XCP — transport, diagnostic, and calibration protocols over CAN.

Transceiver Modules

Plug-in CAN transceiver modules and compatible products to adapt your CAN channels.

API comparison

Direct comparison of PCAN-Basic vs. PCAN-Developer 4 for CAN application development.