FPGA-based EtherCAT Microcontroller circuit design of SPI communication for real-time systems

In this study a novel Microcontroller unit (MCU) circuit based on FPGA for EtherCAT system is presented. The resource utilization statistics of the MCU circuit are provided and the performance of the MCU circuit is analyzed. The first objective is to understand the feasibility of the approach, i.e., whether it is possible for the MCU to drive the EtherCAT slave interface, be reasonable for real-time performance and be stable at different communication SPI frequencies. The second objective is to give the MCU circuit developers some valuable guidelines. Furthermore, it is verified that the proposed MCU circuit based on FPGA is stable, reliable and real-time tested using the online debugging tool SignalTap II.