Colibri Module imx8 CAN controller vs external controller

Technical Support
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Hello,
I have to design a board with Colibri SOM with a CanBus connectivity.
With Pinout Designer Tool, I can see that I have access to imx8 Can controller through pin 19 & 21 ( shared with UART_C TX & RX), but when I see the schematic of the Colibri evaluation board, it is connected through SPI bus to the well-know MCP251x Can controller series.
Is there is special recommendation ( based on linux software driver?) to chose one solution compare to the other one? Note that for my HW & layout work, I don’t care.

Thanks you for you advise.
Regards
Bertrand

2

Hi @bertrandR38 ,

there are Colibri modules in the Colibri family that have a SoC that already provides native CAN support. Some of them don’t have native CAN, therefore the carrier board has an SPI CAN controller to be able to allow this interface/functionality.

Both approaches allow you to use CAN. Since you are using the Colibri iMX8X which features native CAN, you might want to consider using the native one.

See section 5.24 of the Colibri iMX8X datasheet.

Hope this helps.

Best Regards
Kevin

1 Like
3

Thanks you.
Reason is clear for me now. I will use native one.
Bertrand