Fieldbus and industrial ethernet
Human machine interface
Input/output modules
IO-Link modules
PLC control unit
Processing performance, speed and integration
With increasing complexity and continuous evolution of automated production lines, also the automation system requirements are rising rapidly. More data need to be exchanged over the input / output and other function interfaces and CPU cycles are expected to be shorter. Moreover, the systems are supposed to be well synchronized and to operate in a deterministic way.
The data exchange as well as communication is done in real-time with reduced latencies and minimized jitter. This strengthens the requirements on processing performances as well as connectivity architectures and the way of implementation. The industrial factories are often a very harsh environments in terms of pollution such as dust, humidity, chemical but also electro-magnetic field, noise and other disturbances.
Applications must be extremely immune vs. such tough conditions and disturbances and provide reliable operation over their very long lifetimes. Long-term availability, safety and security are another challenge for PLC designs.
Our products and solutions
ST has an extensive offer of STM32, 32-bit microcontrollers and microprocessors and the essential accompanying devices like EEPROM, RTCs and Supervisors and dedicated products ensuring the systems security when connected to a cloud.
Input / output modules can benefit from our highly robust current limited terminations (CLT) significantly reducing power dissipation and intelligent power switches (IPS), enabling reliable driving of industrial loads, able to comply with safety regulations (SIL) and offering also embedded galvanic isolation for high immunity and the most compact designs. Signal conditioning in analog peripherals can be solved by new operation amplifiers, current sensing chips or comparators.
Different application blocks supply circuits can be developed using ST power management ICs. High level of protection tailored according to the exact requirements can be granted thanks to the Transient Voltage Suppressors (TVS) or other protection devices. An essential part of the system are communication interfaces, which enable integration to factory automation system. ST provides solutions for both – wired connectivity through various fieldbuses and wireless connectivity technologies.
