With the rise of Industrial IoT, the topic Security became a key technology for cyber-physical systems. For that purpose, Hilscher developed the next generation of network controllers based on the success of the netX 51/52.
The netX 90 is the first building block of this new family. It convinces with its high integration density, optimized performance, improved power loss and is perfectly suitable for industrial applications with smaller form factors.
The increasing complexity of System-on-Chips (SoC) and the enormous costs for software development and maintenance, associated with multiprotocol-capable real-time industrial communication, turned into market requests that promote solution-oriented concepts.
The perfectly harmonized interplay of hardware and software reduces the development time with the netX 90 and enables a faster “time to market”.
The netX SoC design combines two separate system paradigms in one tiny package, one CPU-kernel for real-time industrial communications and one for industrial applications. The inter-CPU data exchange between both systems, based on a consistent and uniform API, enables application developers to use protocol stacks for communication tasks as loadable firmware (LFW), fully tested and precertified by Hilscher.
This LFW-based software solution can be used regardless of whether the netX 90 is designed as a stand-alone chip application or as a companion chip with host interface. The LFW fully carries out the real-time communication tasks for Industrial Ethernet or Fieldbus. The external host interface ensures a high degree of interoperability for maximum I/O data throughput and a precise synchronization derived from the network cycle time.
All things considered, the netX 90 provides a superior solution of unmatched flexibility for a large variety of industrial slave/device applications in process and factory automation.