The convergence of automotive and industrial automation continues to accelerate, with two significant developments this week highlighting how industrial connectivity automation is reshaping both sectors. These advances promise to address some of the persistent challenges we’ve been grappling with in network architecture and power efficiency.
Single-Pair Ethernet Makes Its Industrial Mark
Microchip’s partnership with Hyundai Motor Group to explore 10BASE-T1S Single-Pair Ethernet implementation caught my attention immediately. While this announcement focuses on automotive applications, the implications for industrial automation are profound. SPE technology has been gaining traction in our industry precisely because it addresses the cable complexity nightmare we’ve all experienced in modern manufacturing environments.
What makes this particularly interesting is the timing. As we’re seeing increased demand for edge computing and distributed control systems, the ability to run both power and data over a single pair of wires becomes a game-changer. I’ve seen too many plant installations where cable management becomes a maintenance headache and a potential point of failure. The automotive sector’s adoption will likely drive down costs and accelerate SPE’s integration into industrial connectivity automation systems.
LiDAR Efficiency Breakthrough Changes the Game
Silanna Semiconductor’s FirePower laser driver ICs achieving 70% power loss reduction is the kind of breakthrough that makes me excited about the future of industrial sensing. Their SL2001 and SL2002 chips, now in production quantities, integrate charging and firing on a single chip – a design approach that eliminates much of the inefficiency we’ve tolerated in traditional LiDAR systems.
For those of us working with automated guided vehicles, robotic systems, or precision measurement applications, this development is significant. Power efficiency directly translates to longer operation cycles, reduced heat management challenges, and lower total cost of ownership. The compact 3.5-mm² package also opens up possibilities for embedding these sensors in space-constrained industrial environments where traditional LiDAR was simply impractical.
What’s particularly compelling is how these advances in industrial connectivity automation and sensing technology are converging. We’re moving toward a future where dense sensor networks can operate more efficiently while transmitting data over simplified cabling infrastructure. This combination addresses two of the biggest pain points I consistently hear from plant engineers: complexity and power consumption.
The question now is how quickly we’ll see these technologies integrated into mainstream industrial automation platforms. Will we finally see the promise of truly distributed, power-efficient sensor networks become reality in 2026?