Communication solution for industrial Ethernet-APL

The collaboration between the two companies revolves around emNet, SEGGER’s IP stack, and the ADIN1110, Analog Devices' robust, low-power industrial 10BASE-T1L Ethernet MAC-PHY device. The combination of emNet and ADIN1110 enables applications with minimum energy consumption, fast transmission rates, and high reliability.

For an Ethernet application with a low-power host processor at maximum transmission rate, the emNet IP stack is the ideal choice. It combines maximum performance with minimal memory requirements and simple integration without configuration effort. The ADIN1110 MAC-PHY simplifies connectivity to any low-power processor through an SPI interface, providing increased flexibility on processor selection.

With emNet and the ADIN1110, ultra-low-power microcontrollers with minimal flash memory and without their own MAC can be selected as processors. By design, emNet supports external MACs such as the ADIN1110, enabling any standard microcontroller to attach to Ethernet.

emNet is also highly efficient in terms of flash, RAM, and packet processing speed so that even small, low-frequency microcontrollers deliver excellent network performance. Thanks to their low power consumption, these processors combined with the ADIN1110 can also be safely operated in explosive environments in the process industry, among others.

SEGGER's emNet in combination with the ADIN1110 also supports the new Ethernet-APL standard and is compliant to IEEE802.3cg for 10BASE-T1L Technology. This enables both data and power over 1 km of single twisted pair cables at 10 MBit/s full-duplex. This provides access to new data and insights from devices located in remote and hazardous areas, supporting real time configuration in the field of a process plant.

Ethernet-APL-based sensors and actuators for the process industry are currently being developed by numerous suppliers.

“The joint effort by SEGGER and Analog Devices enables customers to quickly integrate a TCP/IP-based solution in their devices,” said Stefan Lueder, Project Manager Ethernet-APL integration at SIEMENS.

“ADI’s new ADIN1110 10BASE-T1L MAC-PHY and SEGGER's emNet combine to provide an extremely fast path to market for low power, single pair ethernet communications solution. This is ideal for sensor or actuator nodes for many use cases including those in hazardous areas,” added Mick McCarthy, Director of Industrial Ethernet Technology at Analog Devices.

“What customers want from an IP stack is a combination of maximum performance and the simplest implementation without major configuration effort,” said SEGGER's CEO Ivo Geilenbruegge. “Through our collaboration with Analog Devices, industrial customers get the best possible solution because of its high performance, lowest power and ease of implementation.”

emNet offers a BSD-style socket API for user applications. emNet's standard socket interface with zero-copy extensions makes it easy to run existing applications on top of emNet with minimal or no porting effort. emNet works best with an RTOS. SEGGER highly recommends using embOS, part of SEGGER’s all-in-one embedded OS emPower OS. However, emNet can also be used with other RTOSes.