Industrial / automation electronics

The area of industrial electronics is always ripe for new people and companies with new ideas. Here we will present a few new components and concepts in this fertile area.

One topic that a lot of EEs are interested in is using µTCA chassis/systems in industrial control applications. I spoke with Ian McMurray of GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms (www.gefanuc.com) a short while ago and he felt that while the telecommunications industry has been the first to embrace MicroTCA as an embedded computing architecture because of scalability, performance, small size, and variety of I/O, those requirements are not unique to telecom. They’re equally important in industrial automation.

“Major users of embedded computing in industrial automation applications have, however, been reticent about evaluating MicroTCA, citing various concerns that could cause an evaluation to become protracted and expensive,” Ian said. “We recently brought out the MicroTCA MP-2000 and MP-3000 platforms are easily upgraded and pre-validated, meaning that each has been preconfigured and pretested, ensuring that customer development and deployment times are kept to the minimum possible.”

The MAX1341xE-15E series of half-duplex RS-485/RS-422 transceivers feature auto-direction.

Meanwhile, on a totally different front, Maxim Integrated Products (www.maxim-ic.com) has introduced the MAX1341xE-15E series of half-duplex RS-485/RS-422 transceivers with auto-direction and an integrated LDO. The single receiver/transmitter chips come in SO8 packages with an exposed paddle to improve power dissipation and operate from –40° to 85°C.

Maxim also likes to show off a pair of spread-spectrum auto-zero instrumentation amplifiers that feature an architecture that guarantees less than 20 µV offset and virtually eliminates drift over time and temperature — the MAX4208/4209.

NEC Electronics America (www.am.necel.com) has introduced a new line of flash 16-bit MCUs for inverter control applications—the 78K0R/Ix3. With integrated inverter control circuits and CPU power consumption of only 1.8 mW/MIPS, they are helping to enable new, intelligent and eco-friendly motor drives and appliances.

The 13000X778 series push-pull pushbutton switches are professional grade.

APEM (www.apem.fr) has announced the 13000X778 series professional grade push/pull pushbutton switches. They are suited for industrial, heavy equipment, construction, and military applications where superior durability and safety are required. APEM has also introduced their MDB series of microminiature snap-acting switches that are RoHS compliant and feature silver contacts, 3 A at 125-Vac rating, 100,000 cycles under load rating, and 1 million mechanical cycles rating.

Texas Instruments (www.ti.com/f282x) recently announced F282x digital signal controllers combine the affordability of a fixed-point architecture with the faster software development inherent to floating-point devices. The DSCs bring savings in time-to-market and manufacturing costs, enabling developers to design energy-efficient, less expense industrial applications such as servo controllers, automotive radar, solar inverters and wind turbines.

Servomotors are an integral part of the industrial automation industry. Yet traditional circular connectors prohibit the miniaturization of such motors due to connector size and the need to isolate power and signal from lines.

The TNM Series metal circular connectors from ITT Interconnect Solutions (www.ittcannon.com) is a hybrid design that meets both power and signal requirements in one device. This solution reduces the cost, and reduces the real estate that the connector consumes.

The Infineon (www.infineon.com) OptiMOS-3 40-, 60-, and 80-V n-channel MOSFET families offer what is said to be industry-leading performance in the key specification of on-state resistance, which allows them to reduce power losses by as much as 30% in a given standard TO package, and to reduce part counts by more than 25%. They are suited to a variety of power conversion and management applications in industrial automation systems.

The OptiMOS-3 40-V family meets the needs of fast-switching SMPSs and dc/dc converters, where 30-V MOSFETs do not offer sufficient breakdown protection, while the 60- and 80-V families are primarily intended for secondary side rectification in SMPSs and in motor controls and drives for dc/dc brushless and brushed motors.

The XS5 series of circular waterproof industrial connectors feature a quick locking system.

A new series of IP 67-rated circular M-12 style waterproof industrial connectors features a locking system that enables connection in just 1/8th of a turn. The XS5 from Omron Electronic Components (www.omron.com) improve the integrity of the circuit connection due to an audible click indicating complete insertion and they reduce connection time by up to 90% compared to screw styles.

Ramtron’s (www.ramtron.com) FRAM enhanced FM6124 Event Data Recorder (EDR) IC helps industrial automation designers meet tighter integration between motion and sequential control, while improving event monitoring. The single-chip solution stores state changes in FRAM and alerts the system to those changes. It has 24 Kbytes of FRAM memory for storing event and user data, while its on-chip real-time clock (RTC)/calendar timestamps events. The EDR is well suited for industrial automation event recording such as alerting factory workers when machinery encounters a problem or requires maintenance ahead of schedule due to higher than normal uptime.

Diamond Systems (www.diamondsystems.com) has announced the Neptune family of industrial single board computers. Neptune uses a modular CPU architecture to offer processors ranging from 500-MHz Geode LX800 to a 1.4-GHz Pentium M 738 and to pack an unprecedented amount of I/O into the small 4.5 x 6.5-in. EPIC footprint.

Jim Harrison