EtherCAT’s strong growth continues: The EtherCAT Technology Association (ETG) counts 77 million EtherCAT nodes, adding 18 million in 2023 alone. The data is based on EtherCAT chips sold. To mark EtherCAT’s 20th anniversary, ETG published the global node count for the first time last year, so this data has not been included in common market research.

BE3-25A
“The number of new EtherCAT nodes added last year was impressive. “We thought that after the semiconductor crisis was over, chip sales would decline significantly because everyone stored far more chips than they needed in the short term.” Martin Rostan, Executive Director of EtherCAT Technology Association, explained, “In addition, the market as a whole cooled last year. But despite this, EtherCAT’s growth continues without interruption.”

BE3-25A

This data is based on the number of EtherCAT chips sold that year and does not include chips used by individual bus terminals. For example, an I/O station consisting of 50 EtherCAT bus terminals counts as only one node. There is actually a time lag in counting chips, because not every chip will immediately become an EtherCAT device. But this method is more accurate than other methods. Chips with multi-protocol capabilities are counted according to their EtherCAT usage: therefore, these numbers are only counted in proportion. Any idea that the ETG data is random for marketing purposes is wrong, because on the contrary, our statistics are relatively careful, but the data is very accurate.

BE3-25A
The EtherCAT Technology Association didn’t release the number of nodes until last year. One reason for this is that the number of FPGA-based devices can only be estimated compared to chip sales. These FPGA implementations used to account for a higher percentage. Fpgas account for only 10 percent of the data published so far, so a certain amount of ambiguity doesn’t have a significant impact on the overall data.”

Membership in the EtherCAT Technology Association continues to grow. With more than 7,600 members from 74 countries, ETG remains the world’s largest organization of fieldbus users. Despite the current challenging economic situation, membership growth has even accelerated over the past 12 months, with ETG reporting more than 500 new members in 2023.