Next Generation of Rockwell PLC?

On a more interesting note note than AD/AB bickering, I spot that Rockwell are making public their plans to use the new Intel IXP 465 chips in their next generation of products, and Rockwell are referenced by Intel as having some input to the design objectives of it. This represents an interesting shift of practise for Rockwell who have until now pretty much relied on ASIC chips for their hardware.

Clearly there are two things to be gleaned from this; one is that the next generation of product will have a lot of native connectivity in forms we don't currently associate with PLC's, and the fact that they are willing to publically make statements about it means that at least the first versions could be only a year or two off.

I thought to look up the IXP465 chips and they look fairly interesting, combining a lot of processing power with a lot of of high speed IO devices, ie up to six emebedded Ethernet ports. Here's the Intel page on the critter complete with a link to video clip from an RA type blurbing on about it: IXP465

It is a communication processor.

Ken mentioned a couple of months ago that RA was looking at a Intel chip to make the next version of the the ENBT card. The IXP465 is an X-Scale processor that executes the ARM instruction set. I am pretty sure the current control logix uses a processor that also uses the arm instruction set. By standardizing on the processors that use the ARM instruction set, one can move from one ARM core to another ARM core very easily. It is a smart move.

The ENBT currently uses a PowerPC chip that has built in Ethernet but is running very slow by todays standards. The new synchronous Ethernet protocol will require much higher speeds. We are watching closely RA's plan to be able to do synchronous motion control over Ethernet and we too have just developed a motion controller that has about 10 times the power of the RA ENBT and many times faster than our current product.

The state of the art in the Ethernet world is changing rapidly.

Next generation ENBT will be released sometime in November -December. It will be first module based on X-scale chip.
10/100 Full duplex port like ENBT and at least double frames/sec rate.
It will have front USB1.1 port (device type) for temporary computer connection fully supported in the next release of RSlinx.
It will have rotary switches for initial IP settings for people who can't figure out BOOTP
This module will be backbone design for the next generation DNBs, CNBs (2006) and new generation controller.

Very Interesting...

www.intel.com said:

"Rockwell Automation has chosen to develop its next- generation products using Intel network processors instead of custom ASICs and other technologies. This allows our engineers to focus on our value-add," said Scot Tutkovics, software engineering manager, Rockwell Automation. "The IXP465 meets our demanding design requirements including low power consumption, a high degree of reliability, built-in Ethernet, USB, real-time synchronization and other networking capabilities."

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Sounds very promising...

blah... i'm not a big intel fan, but that's because of the whole x86/pentium plague. these specs do look pretty snazzy though. and built in USB.

Would be nice to have the USB port on the CPU instead.

erk faster Ethernet again! I thought the ENBT at 5000 frames/sec was kind of quick enough. If the new card goes to 10,000 frames/sec that's a LOT of data in industrial automation terms. I wonder how well the CPU comms chips will handle this?

Just speculating but I wonder if RA don't have their eye on some of the newer high speed sub-millisecond deterministic "Ethernet" protocols we have seen out of Europe in the last year or two. After all in Automation terms sheer volume of data rates may be of lesser value than very low thru-put times. As it is standard Ethernet cannot get much below about 5-10msec

Rockwell Automation has chosen to develop its next- generation products using Intel network processors instead of custom ASICs and other technologies.

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That's a good idea. If it means what I think it does. I hope Rockwell is looking to use "standardized" solutions to cut their own development time.

It seems to me that many controls manufacturers, are suffering from a desire to reinvent the wheel. Sometimes, I suppose it comes from necessity: if you want to be cutting edge you might not get the chance to wait around for someone to iron out a new technology. But much of the time it feels, to me, like the desire to "roll your own" is more about marketing. "Merchandising! Merchandising! Where the real money from the movie is made."

There are a lot of really good, solid building blocks out there for developers to latch on to. Intel processors, ethernet (TCP/IP), ActiveX, USB, and the list goes on... To any aspiring design engineer (or college student working on a senior project): pick up a few catalogs and a list of three-letter-acronyms. You might be surprised to find that you can cut your time in half by making a trip to the nearest Radio Shack or Digikey.com.

AK

DaveW said:

Would be nice to have the USB port on the CPU instead.

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Rumor has it, that ANOTHER PLC manufacturer is releasing one VERY soon!

regards.....casey