Powerlink MN functionality as FPGA IP

By using IXXAT’s Powerlink FPGA IP Core, the Powerlink Managing Node (MN) functionality can be implemented rapidly and cost effective into any kind of host system.

The major advantages of the FPGA based implementation are the flexibility, the vendor independency, the reduced development time and due to this the low development costs.
Furthermore, the possibility of reconfiguration of the FPGA solution allows the implementation of various real-time Ethernet based protocols on the same hardware platform.

Besides the Powerlink functionality, the MN IP Core includes a standard Ethernet controller, an Ethernet hub and a PCI controller for the host communication.

The MN IP Core was already successfully implemented on the new Powerlink MN PC interface from IXXAT. The board offers a powerful and cost effective solution to set-up PC based automation systems based on Powerlink.
The board ensures response times in the range of the Ethernet interframe gap, independent of the number of network nodes. The synchronization by the start of cycle frames is done with a jitter of less than 50 ns.
Therefore it is possible to operate systems with cycle times of 200 µs or with up to 240 controlled nodes.

The PC board software provides a simple application programming interface with process image to the host application and a control and status interface. Based on that, it is easy to connect PC applications to the Powerlink network, like a soft SPS.

Besides the Powerlink MN IP Core and the Powerlink PCI board, IXXAT offers the development of customer specific Powerlink MN connections, consulting services and training.

Further information on the IXXAT webpage…