Renesas recently announced the range of RZ/N2L microprocessor units (MPUs) which aims to simplify the implementation of industrial ethernet communications and claims to make the process of adding network functionality to industrial equipment and devices easier. The RZ/N2L complies with many industry standards, specifications and protocols to facilitate the development of industry automation devices that have real-time capability requirements. The new range of products can support Time Sensitive Networking Ethernet standards that can enable real-time communication.
“Revising the full design of equipment in order to implement Industrial Ethernet functionality creates a substantial development burden in terms of both time and cost,” said Hitoshi Shirakabe, Vice President of the Industrial Automation Business Division at Renesas. “To address this challenge, Renesas developed the RZ/N2L, which is optimised as an add-on to existing systems.”
“I anticipate that the RZ/N2L, which supports the fast-growing TSN standard, will further accelerate the spread of Ethernet in the factory automation market,” said Dietmar R. Franke, CEO/CFO at port industrial automation. “We are planning to release GOAL middleware for the RZ/N2L targeting multi-protocol real-time communication to help our customers implement Industrial Ethernet communication technology to their devices.”
The device comes equipped with an integrated TSN-compliant 3 port Gigabit Ethernet switch and an EtherCAT slave controller, these devices also support a plethora of industrial network communication protocols such as EtherCAT, PROFINET RT, EtherNet/IP, and OPC UA, as well as the new PROFINET IRT. The MPUs can support both parallel and serial host interfaces that connect to the host CPU for external applications, allowing a direct connection between the RZ/N2L and the CPU for high-speed access. Additionally, the external CPU can directly access communication data stored in the system RAM of the RZ/N2L. Since the RZ/N2L can perform network processing independently of the external CPU, Industrial Ethernet can be added to systems without the need for major changes to the existing application software.
