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Engineering Education, Resources and Standards
News Release from: CC-Link Partner Association
Edited by the Engineeringtalk Editorial
Team on 20 February 2008
New standard accelerates industrial
Ethernet
CC-Link IE (Control and Communication Link Industrial Ethernet) is the first completely integrated gigabit Ethernet network for industrial automation.
Industrial Ethernet is about to take a paradigm leap forward with a ten-fold increase in communications rates to 1Gbit/s with the release of a new open communication standard by the CC-Link Partners Association (CLPA) Called CC-Link IE (Control and Communication Link Industrial Ethernet), it is the first completely integrated gigabit Ethernet network for industrial automation
This article was originally published on Engineeringtalk on 24 Jul 2008 at 8.00am (UK)
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Launched by the CLPA, it defines the new threshold for open standards for industrial Ethernet.
CC-Link IE combines the best of many existing technologies and applies them to an optical industrial network system with a redundant architecture that enables extremely high-speed and reliable data transfer between field devices and other controllers via Ethernet links.
The signalling rate of 1Gbit/s will redefine the users' expectations and systems capabilities; it being more than enough to cater for the real-time communications requirement of today's manufacturing industries.
In addition to enabling control data transmission to equipment such as PCs, PLCs HMIs and motion controllers, CC-Link realises seamless transmission of data between the various communications layers from shop floor to top floor.
The frequency of the cyclical communications is independent of load and therefore constant for any given network making it predictable and deterministic.
This means that data updates do not slow down when data traffic is heavy, such as during major plant operations or emergency actions.
In fact data can be sent from any station to any other station (and read by the receiving station), even across interlinked networks.
This means that any station can be monitored, programmed, reset and reprogrammed from any other station within the network.
Redundancy is based on a double loop architecture which ensures that the communication can continue even if a cable cuts, because loop-back is done at both sides' node of cut cable.
The ring topology also allows very large networks to be developed.
In fact a single network can include up to 66km of fibre optic cabling with no loss in communication speed.
As many as 120 stations can be integrated into each network, and 239 of these networks can be directly linked together creating total systems with over 14,000km of cabling integrating 25,000 or more nodes - enough to solve most users' problems. Request free introductory details about products from CC-Link Partner Association ...
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