Industrial Ethernet
From harsh environments to increasing system complexity, industrial networks are an entirely different animal to design than are office networks. Establishing connectivity through both environments involves local area network (LAN) technology called Ethernet, following the standard specification IEEE 802.3. Historically, manufacturers addressed factory floor conditions through proprietary Ethernet protocols. Today, however, there’s a growing array of dedicated industrial Ethernet design standards (see Figure 1) that deliver many advantages over proprietary protocols:
- Increased speed, up to 10/100/1000 Mbps and with a roadmap to 10G
- Increased distance and overall performance
- Ability to use standard and less costly industrial Ethernet design equipment such as access points, switches, and hubs
- Better interoperability
Figure 1. Industrial Ethernet Protocols (ETHERNET IP, PROFINET, SERCOS III, ETHERNET Powerlink, EtherCAT)
Changing Standards? No Problem
Altera® programmable solutions can not only support a variety of standards but also adapt to new ones as they emerge. That allows you to develop routers, hubs, switches, and converters that can withstand the demands that they’re up against every day. With a single Altera FPGA and an industrial Ethernet PHY device, you can cost-effectively implement any industrial standard in your design. By programming an FPGA with several media access control (MAC) hardware blocks and our Nios® II embedded processor, you can support multiple standards simultaneously. Or, using the same MAC and industrial Ethernet driver software, you can support multiple identical industrial Ethernet ports from a single device.
Reprogrammability comes with other key advantages. With programmable solutions, you can future-proof your designs. Factory equipment is expected to continue performing at high levels for well over a decade, so you won’t want to be burdened by device end-of-life announcements. FPGAs also give you the advantage of being able to reuse designs for different applications, making your team more productive and helping to shorten development time.
Other technologies simply won’t give you this breadth of benefits or Ethernet solutions. For example, developing your own ASIC supports your high-performance needs, but this requires long development times and high NREs. Microcontrollers can be cost-effective; however, you won’t have the flexibility to support multiple standards. Furthermore, ASSPs are less costly, but you have to worry whether they’ll support the entire lifecycle of your product.
To evaluate industrial Ethernet solutions in an FPGA, take a look at our DBC2C20 development board (developed jointly with Altera partner EBV Elektronik and with National Semiconductor), which is based on our low-cost Cyclone® II FPGA (see Figure 2). Flexible, reliable, and ready to deliver high performance, our devices are made to bring your industrial Ethernet designs to life.
Figure 2. Cyclone II DBC2C20 Development Board
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