NEC Electronics and ELMOS announce IO-Link one-chip-solution for Industrial Automation sensors and actuators

The IO-Link one-chip device includes NEC Electronics’ 78K0R low power 16-bit microcontroller and an IO-Link device transceiver (PHY) circuit designed by ELMOS. TMG-Karlsruhe was responsible for the design of the IO-Link device protocol stack, an essential part of the complete device solution. The collaboration between these three companies significantly simplifies the process of establishing an efficient industrial automation network for customers.

IO-Link is a new standard in industrial automation that significantly improves and modernizes communication between controllers (masters) and sensors or actuators (devices) while maintaining existing installations. Over the years, sensors and actuators in production and process automation have become increasingly more complex and intelligent. Thus nowadays they not only acquire measurement data, but also generate process, diagnostic and parameter data, and can be extensively configured. With IO-Link, users of automation equipment can now fully exploit the advantages of this increased intelligence quickly and easily with low upgrade costs. As a result this new standard has been taken up by most of the leading automation equipment manufacturers in Europe.

At SPS/IPC/Drives 2008 (Nov. 25-27, 2008 in Nuremberg/Germany), NEC Electronics will be showing the IO-Link one-chip-solution on their booth #234 in hall 6. The NEC Electronics microcontroller and the ELMOS transceiver reduce board space, eliminate the need for up to 60 additional discrete devices, improve performance, and lower software design complexity as all functions run on a single controller. The TMG licensable IO-Link device protocol stack designed for the 78K0R CPU cuts development time through an easy-to-use application-programmer-interface (API) allowing developers to simply call needed IO-Link communications functions from their main program.

Prototypes of the IO-Link one-chip solution will be available in the first quarter of 2009. Please contact either NEC Electronics Europe or ELMOS Semiconductor AG for more details.