You’d think operating Industry 4.0 factory equipment would require huge processors—and it can. Proving the great things come in small packages for smart factories is Maxim Integrated Products. The company’s Go-IO PLC reference design packs 17 configurable IOs in a space one-half the size of a credit card, facilitating the full power of industrial Internet of Things and self-diagnostic capabilities.
The PLC is 10 times smaller and consumes 50 percent less power compared to Maxim’s predecessor, the Pocket IO.
With the Go-IO digital factories can adjust the manufacturing line on the fly based on real-time information provided about the health and status of the equipment.
The flexible, rugged, open-source Go-IO reference design is ideal for industrial automation, building automation and industrial robotics applications. It has 12 highly integrated ICs, 17 IOs supporting multiple digital IO configurations, a 4-channel IO-Link master to provide a universal IO interface to both analog and digital sensors, and a robust 25Mbps isolated RS-485 communications channel that provides a reliable, multi-drop data network for uploading time-sensitive health and status information into a local data lake or the cloud.
“As factories and manufacturing plants gather data from an increasing number of automated machines, the PLCs must be smaller to fit on a sub-assembly line or a complex machine. Go-IO furthers industrial convergence with a next-generation industrial IO solution that increases productivity and provides machine-level health and status information for making critical, real-time decisions,” says Jeff DeAngelis, managing director, Industrial & Healthcare Business Unit, at Maxim Integrated.
Here are some of the key benefits:
- Increased Productivity: enriches automated factory equipment with real-time health and status information, so that factory equipment can quickly isolate and resolve problems to maintain high levels of uptime
- Decentralized Control: shifts control and intelligence from one central command center to each automated piece of equipment, enabling equipment to adapt on the fly to changes in product specifications or manufacturing needs
- Small Size, Low Power: packs more intelligence in a smaller footprint—10x smaller (at less than 1 cubic Inch) and 50 percent lower power than its predecessor
Availability and Pricing
- The Go-IO is available as MAXREFDES212# at Maxim’s website for $495. The reference design consists of an application processor, baseboard and the Go-IO module.
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