Modern factories are efficient, configurable, and highly automated systems. The critical technology at the heart of the new generation of factories is Industrial Ethernet, which provides deterministic communication across networked devices in the system. The high performance logic in Spartan 6 FPGAs enables designers to implement low latency Industrial Ethernet switches that ensure deterministic communication even while the number of nodes on the network grows. The programmable logic also allows designers to integrate motor control, safety, and interfaces to legacy communication standards all onto one chip for the smallest form factor hardware possible.