ASIX Electronics has launched a new AX58400 EtherCAT to IO-Link gateway solution which combines EtherCAT industrial Ethernet fieldbus technology and IO-Link intelligent communication technology.

Th AX58400 EtherCAT to IO-Link gateway solution supports up to 8 IO-Link devices, such as smart sensors and actuators, through AX58400 EtherCAT Slave Controller with Dual-Core MCU and ASIX’s own IO-Link Master Protocol Stack. AX58400 is equipped with the highest-performing 480MHz ARM Cortex-M7 core, 240MHz ARM Cortex-M4 core that can operate in parallel, EtherCAT Slave Controller integrated with two embedded Fast Ethernet PHYs, and embedded 2Mbytes dual-bank Flash memory and 1Mbyte SRAM.

This solution uses the highest-performing ARM Cortex-M7 core to process the IO-Link master protocol stack operation for supporting up to 8 IO-Link devices; and uses the ARM Cortex-M4 core to process EtherCAT slave protocol stack operation in parallel. Using AX58400 dual-core MCU architecture can effectively reduce the CPU load of microcontroller and generate a higher-performance EtherCAT slave to IO-Link master gateway solution.

Using IO-Link intelligent communication technology, industrial computers can be easily connected to IO-Link master via industrial Ethernet fieldbus networks to remotely monitor and configure IO-Link smart devices, so manufacturers can easily build up more flexible and effective manufacturing environment in smart factory.

ASIX