RX72M supports industrial protocols to reduce development time, says Renesas
To accelerate the development of industrial slave equipment using the RX72M group of 32-bit industrial Ethernet microcontrollers, Renesas Electronics Components offers the RX72M, which includes an evaluation board, an operating system, middleware and a sample software that supports approximately 70 per cent of the communications protocols used in industrial network applications.
Users can immediately launch slave equipment development, such as motor control blocks for compact industrial robots, programmable logic controller (PLC) devices, and remote I/O systems, says Renesas. The sample software includes EtherCAT, PROFINET RT, Ethernet/IP, Modbus TCP, and OPC UA, as industrial Ethernet software, and PROFIBUS DP, Modbus, RTU/ASCII, CAN open, and DeviceNet, as Field Bus communication software.
Renesas has confirmed conformance testing for the three major protocols – EtherCAT, PROFINET RT, and Ethernet/IP, adding that this represents the global industrial Ethernet market. Developers can reduce the overall development time – including development, evaluation, and verification steps – by as much as six months, claims the company.
“We expect the industrial equipment market connecting to industrial networks to grow at an approximately 10 per cent compound annual growth rate over the next three years, which will elevate the need for slave equipment that can be developed rapidly and that supports a wide variety of industrial networks to become a critical issue,” said Daryl Khoo, vice president of marketing, IoT Platform Business Division at Renesas. He added that the multi-protocol support of the RX72M Industrial Network Solution will accelerate customers’ global product deployment efforts as industrial network protocols differ extensively between countries and regions. By supporting major protocols used in each region, the RX72M allows users to evaluate industrial network connectivity equipment immediately. Customers can focus on their own application development efforts, while strengthening their competitive edge for global product deployments, adds Renesas.
Renesas provides sample software and will collaborate with partners providing sales and support mass production protocols to support customers’ transition from development to mass production.
In addition to the evaluation board, including the RX72M microcontroller, the kit includes RX72M driver software, OS (µITRON) and TCP IP middleware sample programs and industrial network protocol sample programs. There is also a CS+ and e2 studio integrated development environment (IDE).
The RX72M Industrial Network Solution will be available for customers in Japan by December 2019 with OS, middleware, industrial networks support from Renesas’ partner companies. Global access will be available by October 2020.
The RX72M will be showcased in Renesas’ booth at the CIIF (China International Industry Fair) in Shanghai, China, from September 17 to 21, 2019 (booth number 6.1, E202).
