Renesas Electronics introduces EtherCAT dedicated communications SoC for remote I/O slave station applications in industrial automation

     Renesas Electronics announced the release of EtherCAT Dedicated Communications SoCEC-1. This industrial Ethernet solution is designed for use on slave devices such as sensors or actuators, as well as I/O modules equipped with communication capabilities, to significantly increase plant productivity. The new EC-1 is designed to control EtherCAT slave controllers. EtherCAT as an industrial networking protocol, the market demand is expected to increase in the future.

     Based on the following features of EC-1, it can easily realize the remote I/O solution of EC-1 that has passed the conformance certification from the slave station, which can shorten the development time of customers by 60%. The new EC-1 simplifies the transition from low-speed serial communication to EtherCAT communication, and (3) its connectivity has been validated by 10 industry-leading master station equipment manufacturers. Using the new EC-1 simplifies the process of introducing EtherCAT, allowing users to build slave devices such as remote I/O in a short period of time.

     With the advent of Industry 4.0, the need to improve factory production efficiency is increasing. Data networks are becoming more widely used in factories, and at the same time, the number of devices connected to the network, such as manufacturing equipment, is increasing rapidly. In addition, the industrial networks used in factories are also changing, moving from relatively slow serial communication to open standards based on Ethernet technologies such as EtherCAT, EthterNet/IP™ and PROFINET. EtherCAT, which provides efficient data conversion, enables high speed and precise control. Its applications are growing, especially in industrial robots and slave devices for semiconductor production equipment that require high speed and precision control, such as sensors and actuators. Recently, a leading Japanese car manufacturer announced that it will deploy the network in its factories, which is also expected to be widely used in the future.

     Ethercat-based networks, on the other hand, require a new development and evaluation process. New system development involves many steps, including the selection of a suitable SoC, hardware design (such as circuit and layout design), the selection and use of protocol and application processing software, function and performance evaluation, and connection testing with the main equipment (such as programmable logic controllers and programmable automation controllers).

     Therefore, users need to invest a lot of time and money in product development. Industrial Ethernet, in particular, imposes a greater processing load on the central processor, especially for slower traditional serial communications. Because the processing power of the existing microcontrollers and microprocessors is not high, users can not continue to use them, so the data on the CPU needs to be re-evaluated and the existing system needs to make greater adjustments. At the same time, existing software resources may no longer be available, which can also lead to additional development time and expense costs.

     EC-1 can help users transition to a new communication protocol without adding a lot of work, so they can focus on developing applications. The EC-1 integrates the CPU and RAM on a single chip and supports all operations required for EtherCAT communication. Once connected to an existing system via a serial interface, it can be easily upgraded to a system that supports EtherCAT. In addition, for remote I/O systems, a single EC-1 SoC is sufficient for both application processing and EtherCAT communication. For those interested in EtherCAT, Renesas Electronics has developed a solution and a range of reference software specifically for EtherCAT remote I/O development.