| Adding CAN FD without microcontroller conversion
| Reducing in-vehicle network design and development time
| Includes ±58 VDC bus fault protection, etc.

Texas Instruments (TI) Korea announced on the 13th that it will launch an automotive System Basic Chip (SBC) product that integrates a CAN (Controller Area Network) FD (Flexible Data Rate) controller and transceiver.

The newly released TCAN4550-Q1 is designed to meet the high bandwidth and data rate flexibility requirements of in-vehicle networks, and can implement a CAN FD interface or expand the number of bus ports with minimal hardware changes on any microcontroller's SPI (Serial Peripheral Interface) bus transmission method.

Engineers have traditionally spent significant time and money upgrading or expanding CAN FD performance by using multiple discrete components or completely replacing microcontrollers.

The newly released TCAN4550-Q1 SBC allows engineers to control and adjust the vehicle body.CAN FD allows for easy upgrades or expansion of existing microcontroller-based architectures for ADAS and automotive gateway designs.

The CAN FD communication protocol builds on the existing CAN bus standard (Classical CAN) to enable increasingly diverse automotive microcontrollers and connected systems to communicate effectively, while increasing data transmission speeds across automotive networks.

Supporting data rates of up to 5 Mbps and payloads of up to 64 bytes, the CAN FD protocol enables engineers to transfer data faster in next-generation automotive applications.

TI's TCAN4550-Q1 integrates a variety of features, including ±58 VDC bus fault protection, a watchdog timer, and fail-safe mode, while being compatible with the standard CAN protocol, allowing engineers to simplify their designs.

Even when the CAN FD ports of the microcontroller in the automotive system are limited, the TCAN4550-Q1 allows engineers to add more CAN FD buses to the existing SPI ports without system changes.

The TCAN4550-Q1 not only powers itself by integrating a 125mA LDO linear regulator, but also provides a 70mA external output to drive sensors or additional devices. This means that the number of external power supplies required can be reduced, simplifying the power design footprint.

With its wake and stop functionality, the TCAN4550-Q1 can reduce system power consumption when in standby mode.

The TCAN4550-Q1 supports data rates of up to 8 Mbps, exceeding the maximum 5 Mbps data rate of the CAN FD protocol, enabling faster programming of automotive software during assembly.

TI continues to expand its SBC portfolio, including the TCAN4550-Q1 and TLIN1441-Q1, which integrate CAN FD, CAN, and LIN transceivers and power components into single-chip solutions. These highly integrated devices reduce bill of materials (BOM), improve system performance, and shorten design time compared to competing devices. Furthermore, combining TI SBCs with TI C2000 microcontrollers allows designers to quickly and easily expand available bus ports and enhance overall system functionality.

The TCAN4550-Q1 evaluation module allows for easy evaluation of the TCAN4550-Q1 and its CAN FD protocol support. The evaluation module is currently available for $149 through the TI store and authorized distributors.

Engineers can quickly develop optimized-size automotive radar modules by referencing the Automotive RFCMOS 77GHz Radar Module Reference Design that Provides Object Data Output via Dual CAN FD.

The TCAN4550-Q1 is available now through the TI store and authorized distributors. It is packaged in a 4.5 mm x 3.5 mm VQFN package and is priced at $2.20 in quantities of 1,000.