NXP FRDM-IMXRT1186 Board Puts Four Ethernet Ports in PLC Design
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NXP FRDM-IMXRT1186 Board Puts Four Ethernet Ports in PLC Design
The industrial intelligent edge has a wiring problem. PLCs, remote I/O racks and robot controllers are increasingly expected to speak EtherCAT, PROFINET, EtherNet/IP and TSN at the same time, while legacy fieldbus architectures are being retired. NXP's new FRDM-IMXRT1186 development board , built around the i.MX RT1186 crossover MCU and equipped with four Ethernet ports , is a direct silicon answe
Detail
Positioned as the first FRDM board derived from NXP's i.MX RT crossover MCU family, the FRDM-IMXRT1186 packages a dual-core architecture, deterministic networking and production-grade security into a compact, low-cost prototyping platform aimed squarely at programmable logic controllers, remote I/O, motor control and robotics.
The strategic signal here is less about a single dev board and more about vendor behaviour. NXP is pushing multi-protocol Ethernet switching and time-sensitive networking down from the application-processor tier into the microcontroller tier. That compression is what allows a mid-range PLC to be re-engineered around a single device instead of an MCU plus an external switch plus a separate security element.
A crossover MCU sits deliberately between traditional microcontrollers and application processors: it delivers real-time determinism with application-class compute. The i.MX RT1186 fits that definition, pairing an 800 MHz Arm Cortex-M7 core for hard real-time control with a 300 MHz Arm Cortex-M33 core running TrustZone for security and system services.
The connectivity story is the headline. The device integrates a gigabit time-sensitive networking (TSN) switch, and the FRDM board exposes it as two gigabit connectors plus two 10/100 Mbps connectors that can be routed for EtherCAT or TSN duties. In practice, that means a single board can be configured as a protocol bridge, a distributed switch node or a two-port EtherCAT SubDevice.
HyperRAM, 512 Mbit HyperFlash and 128 Mbit QSPI Flash for application and firmware storage
2× 10/100/1000 Mbps Ethernet connectors for the TSN switch, plus 2× 10/100 Mbps Ethernet connectors for EtherCAT or TSN switching
Arduino UNO R3 headers, FRDM header, FlexSPI follower header, SRAMC header and a dedicated motor control header
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