Can we relay Ethercat protocol frames through a custom Ethernet switch(which meets the latency and jitter expectations)

Question

I am planning to develop a custom highly efficient ethernet switch that can connect my Ethercat slave to a master. The switch does not do anything on the Ethercat frames and just forwards them to the master. The switch can relay the frames with latencies in the range of 100 nanoseconds. Do I need to use any specific Ethercat device interfaces for my device or can I just use normal Ethernet interfaces for this implementation? This will just act as a connector between slaves and the master. No processing will be done on the frames. Can this be done, without using any specific Ethercat interfaces and just normal Ethernet switching logic?

Answer 1

Yes you can use regular Ethernet interfaces for this. In fact there are several options for this type of device already on the market.

https://www.dualcomm.com/products/zero-delay-fast-ethernet-copper-tap

https://www.beckhoff.com/en-en/products/i-o/ethercat-development-products/elxxxx-etxxxx-fbxxxx-hardware/et2000.html