Today I viewed the Automation World webcast “Deterministic Ethernet for Distributed Motion Control” (sponsored by National Instruments). It’s now available for viewing.
It covers EtherCAT, Ethernet/IP, and PROFINET for motion control. Irene Bearly of NI handled the PROFINET portion very well. (She learned at one of our free training classes – you should attend one.)
Joey Stubbs of the EtherCAT group presented EtherCAT. I had already been to one of Joey’s seminars, so no surprises for me here.
What was a surprise to me was in the Ethernet/IP presentation: Apparently ODVA recommends custom silicon for motion control applications. After all their snarky remarks about PROFINET requiring proprietary silicon (I debunked that myth here*), they now need silicon. I wonder if they need proprietary silicon. 😉
–Carl Henning
*Short version: some PROFINET applications (mostly motion applications) need custom silicon, but it’s not proprietary. Chips are available from Siemens, NEC, Hilscher and perhaps others.