kevinferron.comKevin Ferron

The network ladder

LIN, CAN, CAN FD, CAN XL, FlexRay and Automotive Ethernet from 10BASE-T1S to multi-gig, on one log bandwidth scale.

  • LIN
  • CAN
  • CAN FD
  • CAN XL
  • FlexRay
  • Automotive Ethernet

A car has several networks because no single one is right for everything. A window switch does not need a gigabit, and a camera cannot live on a kilobit. Each rung of the ladder exists because the one below ran out of speed, size or timing.

The bars are on a log scale, so each gridline is ten times the one before. LIN sits at the left edge and the newest Ethernet amendments at the far right, a gap of about six orders of magnitude.

Click a bar for what the sources say about it: payload size, topology, when it arrived. Many of those fields say “not stated in the sources”. That is deliberate. The page only shows what the pinned documents give, and a few well-known numbers are not in them.

Two bars end with a dashed edge. CAN FD’s arbitration phase is capped at 1 Mbit/s but its data phase can go faster, and the source does not say how much. CAN XL is given as 20 Mbit/s and higher.

  • Serial
  • CAN family
  • FlexRay
  • Automotive Ethernet
  • rate can go higher

Log scale: each gridline is ten times the one before. Bars show the rate a source gives for the standard, not what a link carries in practice.

CAN family

CAN FD

arbitration at 1 Mbit/s

Data-phase maximum: not stated. CiA says only that the transceiver limits it.

Payload
up to 64 byte
Topology
not stated in the sources
Year
2012, introduced at the 13th international CAN Conference
Throughput
about 6 times CAN CC with a 1:8 bit-rate ratio
CRC
17-bit for payloads up to 16 byte, 21-bit above

Sources

  1. ISO 17987-4 Road vehicles — Local Interconnect Network (LIN) — Part 4: Electrical physical layer. 2025 (catalogue abstract, partly read).

    • Bit rates up to 20 kbit/s
    • Electrical physical layer: bit rates up to 20 kbit/s (ISO summary)
    • Low-cost single-wire physical layer
    • Voltage classes and temperature range

  2. IEEE SA, 2023 Amendments to IEEE Std 802.3-2022 Raise The Speed Bar for Automotive Ethernet (802.3cy, 802.3cz). 27 November 2023.

    • 802.3cz-2023: up to 50 Gb/s over glass optical fibre
    • 802.3cy-2023: 25 Gb/s over a single balanced copper pair
    • 802.3cy-2023
    • IEEE SA article, 27 Nov 2023
    • PoDL up to 500 mA
    • 802.3cz-2023: 2.5, 5, 10, 25 and 50 Gb/s over glass optical fibre
    • 802.3cz-2023

  3. CiA: CAN FD CAN in Automation, CAN FD: the basic idea. as read October 2026.

    • Arbitration phase limited to 1 Mbit/s; data phase limited by the transceiver
    • CAN FD payload up to 64 byte, no longer limited to 8 byte
    • Payload up to 64 byte
    • Throughput at a 1:8 bit-rate ratio
    • CRC length

  4. CiA: CAN XL CAN in Automation, CAN XL. as read October 2026.

    • PWM coding allows 20 Mbit/s and higher
    • Data field 1 to 2048 byte
    • Frame fields
    • CANsec

  5. ISO 17987-1 Road vehicles — Local Interconnect Network (LIN) — Part 1. Ed. 2, 2025 (catalogue abstract).

    • Edition 2, 2025-05

  6. CiA: history CAN in Automation, History of CAN technology. as read October 2026.

    • ISO 11898 physical layer: bit rates up to 1 Mbit/s
    • History: Bosch 1986, ISO 11898 in 1993
    • First series use
    • CAN FD introduction

  7. ISO 17458-4 Road vehicles — FlexRay communications system — Part 4: Electrical physical layer specification. Ed. 1, 2013, confirmed 2025 (catalogue abstract).

    • Electrical physical layer: data rates up to 10 Mbit/s (ISO summary)
    • Topologies (ISO summary)
    • Time-triggered networks (ISO summary)

  8. ISO 17458-1 Road vehicles — FlexRay communications system — Part 1: General information and use case definition. Ed. 1, 2013, confirmed 2025 (catalogue abstract).

    • Edition 1, 2013-02

  9. IEEE 802.3cg IEEE 802.3cg-2019 (10 Mb/s single-pair Ethernet, incl. 10BASE-T1S). 2019, now superseded into 802.3.

    • 10 Mb/s over a single balanced pair with optional power
    • Approval date

  10. IEEE P802.3cg tutorial IEEE P802.3cg Task Force tutorial. January 2019.

    • Clause 147: 15 m point-to-point; multidrop 8 nodes over 25 m
    • Multidrop power

  11. ISO 11898-1 Road vehicles — Controller area network (CAN) — Part 1: Data link layer and physical coding sublayer. Ed. 3, 2024 (catalogue abstract).

    • Edition 3, 2024-05 adds the XL frame format (ISO summary)

  12. IEEE 802.3bw IEEE 802.3bw-2015 (100BASE-T1). 2015, now superseded into 802.3.

    • 100 Mb/s over a single twisted pair
    • Point-to-point full duplex
    • Approval date
    • 802.3bw page, read for the rate and topology; it gives no reach

  13. IEEE P802.3bp objectives P802.3bp Updated Objectives (project objectives, not the published text). July 2014, v1.0.

    • 1 Gb/s (project objectives, July 2014)
    • Objectives: link segment, inline connectors, full duplex
    • BER objective

  14. IEEE 802.3bp IEEE P802.3bp 1000BASE-T1 PHY Task Force. Std 802.3bp-2016.

    • Std 802.3bp-2016 approval

  15. IEEE 802.3ch IEEE 802.3ch-2020 (multi-gigabit automotive Ethernet). 2020, now superseded into 802.3.

    • 2.5, 5 and 10 Gb/s over a single balanced pair
    • Single balanced pair for automotive use
    • Approval date
    • 802.3ch page, read for the rates and approval date; it gives no reach

Everything here is paraphrased from the pinned sources, not quoted, and figures are attributed to them. Anything illustrative is labelled as such. Where a source is silent the page says so instead of filling the gap.