The EtherCAT Technical Association (ETG) is 20 years old: The association was founded in November 2003 at the SPS/IPC/Drives exhibition in Nuremberg with 33 founding members. From the beginning, the association’s goal has been to open and promote EtherCAT technology globally: everyone should be able to use and implement EtherCAT. From the beginning, ETG has brought together end users, machine manufacturers and suppliers of advanced control technology from different industries.

ETG user members come from many different industries, ensuring that EtherCAT is optimally prepared for a wide range of applications. With their qualified feedback, the system partners have ensured that the integration of hardware and software components for all required device categories is easy to achieve. Soon, universities and research institutions joined in and began using EtherCAT in teaching and a wide range of research projects.

ETG quickly grew to become the largest fieldbus association in the world. In just five years, the number of members has passed the 1,000 mark, including companies, universities and organizations, but no individuals. Subsequent growth accelerated further: from 3,000 members in 2014 to 5,000 members in 2018, the association now has nearly 7,500 members from 74 countries and continues to grow at a rapid rate of nearly 500 new members per year.

History of EtherCAT

Founded in Nuremberg, Germany, ETG has had offices in the United States, China, Japan and South Korea since 2007. The conformance testing Center was opened in 2009. From the beginning, ETG has provided its members with free seminars, software and technical implementation support. Plugfests are also very popular: so far, ETG has held a total of 59 of these multi-day developer conferences in Europe, Asia, and North America to test the interoperability of devices.

In numerous technical working groups, ETG members continued to advance EtherCAT, always ensuring a “must be backward compatible” approach to scaling the technology. As a result, EtherCAT comes in only one version, and today’s devices can be used in 2004 systems without any problems.

In 2005, Safety over EtherCAT functional safety was added to the technology. Also known as FSoE (Fail Safe over EtherCAT), this extension meets the requirements of IEC 61508 and IEC 61784 to integrate safety-critical communications into the system for applications up to SIL 3. EtherCAT’s security is also solid: it’s the only industrial Ethernet security protocol that doesn’t have to change to meet the more stringent standards that continue to grow.

EtherCAT P (EtherCAT Communication + Power Supply) is an extension of EtherCAT cabling technology introduced in 2016. P stands for power supply, enabling the four-wire standard Ethernet cable to be used not only for data transmission, but also for two electrically isolated, individually switchable 24 V/3 A power supplies. Multiple EtherCAT devices can be cascaded. This means that only one cable is needed to connect and power the field equipment.

EtherCAT G is the next fully backward compatible extension of the technology and is currently in its infancy. EtherCAT G extends EtherCAT to devices with particularly high bandwidth requirements without replacing the powerful and proven 100 Mbit/s EtherCAT technology.

Open technology will produce not only technical specifications within the association, but also many national and international standards. EtherCAT and Safety over EtherCAT is the IEC international standard, the national standard in China and South Korea, the SEMI standard for the semiconductor industry, and ETG is the official standardization partner of IEC and IEEE.

Not only does ETG actively support many device manufacturers, it also promotes the technology by holding seminars and participating in exhibitions around the world. To date, ETG has held 175 roadshows in more than 50 countries and demonstrated the technology at more than 200 exhibitions.

In 2023, to commemorate the 20th anniversary of EtherCAT technology, the EtherCAT Technology Association published node data for the first time. Not including modular devices such as bus terminals, by the end of 2022, EtherCAT chips sold close to 60 million, of which multi-protocol chips are only calculated based on EtherCAT market share. The number of manufacturers of EtherCAT devices exceeds 3,500, which is likely to ensure that EtherCAT becomes the most widely used industrial Ethernet technology by its major anniversary.