Ethercat passes the 100 million mark
With 105.2 million installed nodes, Ethercat has further expanded its leading role among industrial real-time Ethernet systems
In 2025 alone, 16.9 million new nodes were added, which indicates accelerated growth after chip crisis-related inventories were reduced. The figures are based on reports from chip manufacturers and a conservative counting method: Multiprotocol chips are only taken into account proportionally, FPGA implementations with 10%, modular I/O assemblies not at all.
The technical strengths of Ethercat include short cycle times, high deterministics and low latency due to throughput processing. Added to this are simple commissioning without switches, flexible topologies and a wide range of applications from robotics and production automation to semiconductor and packaging technology to energy, building and medical technology. The Ethercat Technology Group expects further growth, also driven by safety requirements and new applications in robotics and intralogistics. The license model via the chips finances the ETG and ecosystem, with free ETG membership for users and providers.
