Renesas Electronics Singapore launches Ethercat communication SoC

Renesas Electronics Singapore has launched an industrial Ethernet solution to boost production efficiency in factories – the EC-1, a dedicated Ethercat communication system-on-chip (SoC). The EC-1 is intended for use in slave devices such as sensors and actuators, and in I/O modules equipped with communication functions.

The new EC-1 controls the Ethercat slave controller, an industrial network protocol. In order to control the slave controller, the EC1 contains the following features: (1) the EC-1 remote I/O solution passed the conformance test tool and cuts development time by approximately 60 percent, (2) the EC-1 simplifies the transition from low speed serial communication to EtherCAT and (3) connectivity has been verified with master devices from ten leading manufacturers. The new EC-1 simplifies the adaption of EtherCAT, by allowing users to get started with development of an Ethercat slave with much shorter development time. to build slave devices such as remote I / O.

Renesas plans to actively promote the EC-1 in China, Japan, and other Asian markets as a device that can help shorten the time needed to develop Ethercat systems, which are becoming increasingly widespread.