CTU CAN FD open-source IP core
An open-source CAN FD (Controller Area Network with Flexible Data-rate) controller designed at Czech Technical University in Prague, used as a soft IP core inside FPGAs and SoCs such as Xilinx Zynq and Intel Cyclone V boards, and also integrated as PCIe devices and emulated in QEMU. CAN FD itself is widely used in automotive, industrial, and embedded control systems.
recommendation
It should stay in the kernel because the IP core is still actively developed, with a v2.6.0 datasheet published in late 2025, a recent migration from GitLab to GitHub, and substantive driver fixes landing in mainline as recently as January 2026. QEMU also ships an emulated CTU CAN FD PCI device, so the driver matters for virtualization and CI testing as well as real FPGA deployments.
repository signals
sources
- static.lwn.net
Kernel documentation says CTU CAN FD is an open-source soft core, with Linux driver support for Xilinx Zynq, Intel Cyclone V/DE0-Nano-SoC, PCIe integration, and QEMU mainline emulation.
- canbus.pages.fel.cvut.cz
Project page lists CTU CAN FD IP Core as an active CTU FEE CAN-bus project with documentation, testing results, and FPGA/SoC integrations.
- canbus.pages.fel.cvut.cz
The datasheet was published in late 2025 and describes CTU CAN FD v2.6.0, indicating current maintained documentation for the IP core.
- gitlab.fel.cvut.cz
The old GitLab project is archived and explicitly says the project migrated to GitHub, which indicates continuation rather than retirement.
- qemu.org
Current QEMU documentation includes CTU CAN FD support examples and the emulated PCI device ctucan_pci, showing ongoing virtualization/test deployment relevance.
codex reasoning notes (technical)
`exec_command` on the local kernel tree showed substantive ctucanfd activity through 2026-01-09 (functional SSP fix) plus 2025 maintenance, with no sign of staged removal in recent history. `web.search_query` + `web.open` found current kernel docs, CTU project pages, a 2025 datasheet, GitLab->GitHub migration, and current QEMU docs. Overall this is a niche but still-live FPGA/SoC/IP-core CAN FD driver with ongoing upstream fixes and documented modern deployments; no natural in-tree replacement covers the same IP block.