Specially for the implementation of a SERCOS III interface on systems with limited space or with specific form factor requirements, IXXAT offers the Industrial Ethernet Module (IEM) as design-in solution. The design-in of the IEM is based on the cost-effective Cyclone III FPGA from Altera and offers for SERCOS III a communication interface as complete Generic IO Device.

At this, the bus communication is performed autonomous using the logic implemented within the FPGA. The communication stack is running on the Softcore which is also located on the FPGA. As Ethernet interface, two Ethernet ports are provided, which can be equipped, according to the application, with RJ45, M12 connectors or optical transceivers.

The IEM design-in is connected via address/data bus or SPI to the microcontroller on the customer hardware. To control the IEM design-in a function-based API is provided. The API is available for Infineon XC161, TI TMS320 and Freescale Coldfire V2 platforms. An potation to other target platforms, for example Atmel, Freescale, NXP and STM can be made with little effort. The design-in is, with the same API, also available for EtherCAT, EtherNet/IP, Modbus-TCP, PROFINET, and POWERLINK. Thus, with regard to the layout requirements, different Industrial Ethernet standards are supported by only one hardware.

Of course, in addition to the design-in, IXXAT also offers the product “IEM” as piggyback board, providing the same functionality as the IEM design-in. The form factor of this product can be adapted to customer requirements by IXXAT at a fixed price.
Through the continuous development of the IEM and through a common API for various industrial Ethernet standards, finally your investment is protected for a long time and your investment risks are reduces considerably.

go the the IEM for SERCOS III on the IXXAT webpage…

New Consortium Speeds IEEE 1588 Testing

The University of New Hampshire InterOperability Laboratory (UNH-IOL), an independent provider of broad-based testing and standards conformance services for the networking industry, announced that the organization will host an industry plugfest, providing participants the opportunity to perform interoperability testing of devices in compliance with the Precision Time Protocol IEEE 1588-2008 standard. The Precision Time Protocol Interoperability plugfest, which will take place September 27 – September 29 at the UNH-IOL’s 32,000+ square foot facility in Durham, N.H., will be held in association with the 2010 International IEEE Symposium on Precision Clock Synchronization (ISPCS) for Measurement, Control and Communication. The Symposium immediately follows the plugfest on September 29 – October 1 in Portsmouth, N.H., and is a forum for researchers and practitioners from industry, academia, and government involved in the area of Precision Clock Synchronization.

As use of Ethernet became increasingly widespread in networked measurement and control systems, an alternative to existing protocols was required that could increase the accuracy of clock synchronization while minimizing the cost of implementation. The standard, originally published in 2002, and revised in 2008 as IEEE 1588-2008, allows a variety of industries including telecommunications, industrial automation, power transmission, test and measurement and consumer electronics, to increase timing accuracies, minimize network administration and resources, and adapt to low-cost and low-end devices.

As an independent organization, the UNH-IOL is committed to neutral testing of open standards technology and the lab’s plugfests allow participating companies to test their devices and identify interoperability issues early, speeding go to market time for products. In addition to plugfests, the UNH-IOL offers a variety of testing programs, or consortiums, representing a collaboration of industry leaders in network equipment, test equipment and industry forums, as well as service providers. Working together, the participants can decrease research and development and quality assurance expenses, reduce product time to market and drive the industry acceptance of a technology.

In May 2010, the UNH-IOL IEEE 1588 Consortium was launched and is currently accepting founding member companies. Consortium members have access to a comprehensive test bed that supports the entire spectrum of profiles under the IEEE 1588-2008 standard resulting in a cost effective and efficient way to ensure interoperability.

As a plugfest participant, IXXAT, a leading supplier of data communication technology for the automation and automotive industry, is a strong proponent of the UNH-IOL’s involvement in the ISPCS Symposium.

“The UNH-IOL is a proven leader in interoperability testing in a wide range of emerging technologies,” said Bill Seitz, director, IXXAT. “The lab’s plugfest combines their staff’s extensive knowledge and expertise in the area of Ethernet and networking technologies, with a vendor-neutral approach. It’s one of the most efficient ways to test product interoperability and get early insights into any adjustments we could make to our products.”

“Being able to reduce costs while increasing accuracy is why we’ve seen an increased demand for IEEE 1588-2008 complaint devices,” said Jon Beckwith, senior engineer for the UNH-IOL. “By using the UNH-IOL as an independent lab or as an extension of internal testing labs, member companies have an economical way to test their products against existing profiles, and direct involvement on where to focus testing in the future. This open review approach allows for thorough, industry-proven testing and helps instill confidence in the industry.”

The analysis and diagnostic tools from IXXAT have been complemented by the new CBT2plus and CANobserver, enabling an even easier analysis and monitoring of CAN networks during development, manufacturing and service.

The new CBT2plus enables the fast and yet detailed analysis of the signal quality in CAN networks. Due to the various trigger modes and the integrated oscilloscope, errors can easily be analyzed and thus causes of errors can be detected and fixed quickly.

The CANobserver offers the comprehensive analysis functionality of CBT2plus in an enhanced version for long-term monitoring. The CANobserver allows the permanent monitoring of CAN based networks. If signal quality is impaired, the CANobserver can autonomous inform the operator via e-mail, SNMP or by setting a digital output, e.g. to switch a signal light. Maintenance actions can thus be carried out in good time before errors occur in the CAN network.

In combination with the CANcorder, the data logger from IXXAT, also occasionally occurring errors and their causes can be detected and fixed.

Thus, the IXXAT portfolio of test and diagnostic tools covers the full range, from development, to manufacturing and service: canAnalyser and CBT2plus at the development of CAN devices, CANcheck as CAN test equipment during commissioning of CAN systems and CANobserver for continuous monitoring of CAN networks.

CAN-Bus-Tester 2 plus…

Read more about the development projects we made together with our customers and see the benefits of collaboration for your project. On our webpage we present currently three projects from different development areas.

read the Success Stories

Implementation strategies for POWERLINK

Among a large number of Ethernet-based communication systems that are suitable for automation due to their real-time capability, nowadays solutions such as PROFINET, EtherNet/IP, EtherCAT, POWERLINK or Sercos III set the standards. Although all of the above-mentioned systems are based on Ethernet, they vary considerably in terms of their specific features and areas of application. When selecting a suitable protocol, not only criteria such as performance, availability and hardware costs play a decisive role but also the possibilities for optimum implementation.

read the whole article…

The device is now able to automatically send e-mails to inform the user about faults within the communication system more quickly. This also enables to plan maintenance operations before system failures happen. Furthermore, the internal memory has been expanded by five times: Instead of the previous four, now the device comes with 20 data sets providing a storage capacity for up to 10 years. The third new feature is the SAE J1939 protocol support. Besides CAN, CANopen and DeviceNet, the CANobserver supports now also SAE J1939 systems.

read more…

WEINGARTEN, Germany – June 16, 2010 – acontis technologies GmbH, a leader in EtherCAT^® Master protocol IP, has collaborated with Freescale Semiconductor, a leader in embedded processors for industrial applications, and Green Hills Software, Inc., the largest independent vendor of embedded software solutions, to create an embedded reference design for the EtherCAT Master protocol integrated with the Green Hills INTEGRITY^® safe, secure real-time operating system on the Freescale QorIQ™ multicore processing platform.  This solution, which allows customers to confirm EtherCAT Master function, reliability and performance, and more quickly complete their designs, will be first demonstrated during the Freescale Technology Forum in Orlando, June 21-24, 2010.

The acontis EtherCAT Master Stack AT-EM’s latest release, operating on the Green Hills INTEGRITY real-time operating system, includes the combined operation of redundant ring operation and the hot-connect feature pack. These new features enable customers to perform a broad variety of configuration change operations without having an impact on the operation of all EtherCAT slave nodes.

In North America, the acontis technologies’ AT-EM EtherCAT Master protocol IP is available exclusively through IXXAT, Inc. of Bedford, NH. IXXAT has been a Freescale Design Alliance Partner since 2004 and has provided data communication protocols for CAN (CANopen^®, DeviceNet™, J1939), Industrial Ethernet and IEEE^® 1588 for Freescale’s ColdFire^®, PowerQUICC^® and QorIQ processor platforms. Bill Seitz, President of IXXAT, North America said, “The relationship we have crafted with acontis technologies and the resulting reference design to be introduced by Freescale at FTF this year, will provide an important and attractive complete and ready-made solution to our machine OEM customers who are migrating from fieldbus to Industrial Ethernet data communication. The addition of the Green Hills safety-certified, reliable INTEGRITY RTOS further advances our ability to provide attractive embedded solutions to our mutual customers.”

IXXAT Automation offers an universal protocol stack for manufactures of DeviceNet components, enabling the fast and easy development of customer specific slave devices. The DeviceNet Slave Software is available for a variety of microcontrollers with integrated CAN controller, and can be easily ported to new systems on request. At this, it does not matter if 8, 16 or 32 bit microcontrollers are used. The software is scalable, so that only the functions required for the specific application do require memory. This allows the development of application with a very low memory footprint. The DeviceNet Slave software is always tested with the current version of the of ODVA certification software, so the manufacturer’s development is always made on a solid base.

With over 15 years of experience in the development of DeviceNet devices for a variety of well-known manufacturers from all over the world, IXXAT underlines its leadership in the area of DeviceNet services. For manufacturers who enter into this new technology, IXXAT offers an in-house DeviceNet seminar. Of course, additional services, such as consulting in the concept phase, the development of hardware and software as well as the complete implementation of customer projects, are also offered by IXXAT.

Together with the long-standing Managing Director and co-partner of IXXAT Holding, Dipl.-Ing. Christian Schlegel, Dipl.-Ing. Werner Sauter will manage the company as the Business Manager. Werner Sauter has worked for IXXAT since September 1, 2009 and is responsible for Sales, Marketing, Personnel and Business Management since January 1, 2010.

As the Director Retail Systems Market at Bizerba GmbH & Co KG, Werner Sauter was responsible for worldwide sales and product marketing of the Retail Systems division. Before that he managed the basic systems product division at Bizerba and in this position was responsible for hardware and software development as well as electronic production for components and systems.

This video demonstrates how users can utilize IXXAT’s CANbridge Application Developer’s Kit (ADK) to create custom software for filtering and modification of all CAN messages which are received by the two CAN channels within the CANbridge.  Applications includes protocol conversion, packet data modifications and filtering based on data values.  The ADK is available for all industrial and automotive versions of the CANbridge.

Click here for more information about the CANbridge, and call for more information about the CANbridge ADK.  North American customers please call 603-471-0800 x101 (for other countries +49-751-56146-0).

See the video…