ASIX Launches New EtherCAT to IO-Link Gateway Solution
February 04, 2022
News
ASIX Electronics launched its AX58400 EtherCAT to IO-Link Gateway Solution. This new solution combines EtherCAT industrial Ethernet fieldbus technology and IO-Link intelligent communication technology.
With the demand of the global industry 4.0 smart manufacturing market, ASIX Electronics Corporation launched the AX58x00 family EtherCAT slave controllers/microcontrollers solution to further provide a complete industrial Ethernet fieldbus solution.
Using this EtherCAT slave to IO-Link master gateway solution, customers can easily install the newest IO-Link smart sensors and actuators on EtherCAT industrial Ethernet networks in smart factory.
Fetures include:
- The IO-Link intelligent communication standard (IEC61131-9) is an open standard point-to-point serial communication protocol for communicating with smart sensors and actuators.
- The IO-Link communication system consists of an IO-Link master and IO-Link devices such as smart sensors and actuators.
- The IO-Link master can access information such as manufacturing process data, device configuration parameters and self-diagnosis results from IO-Link devices, and can establish two-way digital data exchange with industrial Ethernet fieldbus PLC.
Therefore, the industrial PLC can remotely receive the manufacturing process data from IO-Link smart devices, monitor the health status of IO-Link smart devices for preventive equipment maintenance or replacement, and configure the parameters of IO-Link smart devices to meet various manufacturing needs.
The IO-Link intelligent communication technology and industrial Ethernet fieldbus technologies, such as EtherCAT, PROFINET, EtherNet/IP, Modbus TCP, etc., are a cooperative relationship and not a competitive one.
According to ASIX, the AX58400 EtherCAT to IO-Link gateway solution supports up to 8 IO-Link devices, such as smart sensors and actuators, through AX58400 EtherCAT Slave Controller with Dual-Core MCU and ASIX's own IO-Link Master Protocol Stack. AX58400 is equipped with the highest-performing 480MHz ARM® Cortex®-M7 core, 240MHz ARM® Cortex®-M4 core that can operate in parallel, EtherCAT Slave Controller integrated with two embedded Fast Ethernet PHYs, and embedded 2Mbytes dual-bank Flash memory and 1Mbyte SRAM. This solution uses the highest-performing ARM® Cortex®-M7 core to process the IO-Link master protocol stack operation for supporting up to 8 IO-Link devices; and uses the ARM® Cortex®-M4 core to process EtherCAT slave protocol stack operation in parallel. Using AX58400 dual-core MCU architecture can effectively reduce the CPU load of microcontroller and generate a higher-performance EtherCAT slave to IO-Link master gateway solution.
For more information, please visit asix.com.
Chad Cox. Production Editor, Embedded Computing Design, has responsibilities that include handling the news cycle, newsletters, social media, and advertising. Chad graduated from the University of Cincinnati with a B.A. in Cultural and Analytical Literature.
