ODVA Specifies ix Industrial as an EtherNet/IP Interface

ODVA has officially specified the ix Industrial mating face for EtherNet/IP, completing standardisation and referencing for a connector that already held an IEC number — IEC 61076-3-124 — and already appeared in PROFINET, CC-Link IE TSN, FL-net and GigE Vision.

The physical case is straightforward. ix Industrial occupies roughly 75 percent less volume than RJ45, with a 10 mm assembly pitch that allows far higher port density. Electrically it delivers Cat. 6A performance with 360-degree full shielding, data rates to 10 Gbit/s for 10GBASE-T, and IEEE 802.3bt PoE++ support with 1.5 A per pair. It is rated for 5,000 mating and disconnection cycles across -40 to +85 degrees Celsius. Mechanically it uses a double-row contact system, two metal locks and THR shield pins. Variants cover IDC or solder termination, IP65/67 with HARTING push-pull locking, and an ix MAG version with integrated magnetics.

Supply is the part procurement will care about. Hirose, HARTING and Amphenol all offer it, with cable assemblies through distributors including Sinbon and Misumi — three independent sources under an IEC standard number, which is the condition for treating a connector as a commodity rather than a single-vendor dependency. Siemens, Beckhoff and B&R have already integrated it into their own products.

ODVA's own framing is blunt: ix Industrial is the standardised miniature Ethernet connector of the next generation and replaces the ubiquitous RJ45. That will take a long time. But for anyone designing a compact IPC, a robot controller, a servo drive or a machine vision camera, RJ45 port count has been a hard physical limit, and the design decision about which small connector to adopt has now largely been made by the standards bodies.