WR-D4004 RELIANCE CPU module

In today's competitive global economy, small improvements in manufacturing can yield huge competitive advantages. This perception is driving a fundamental shift on the factory floor. Manufacturers are deploying the latest sensor technologies, adopting new control architectures, and beginning to tap the potential of "big data" and data analytics.

The shift to a distributed control architecture is accelerated by the growing number of sensors used to track environmental and process monitoring variables, and factories seeking opportunities to reduce bottlenecks and shorten loops by placing PLCS close to control processes. Ultimately, improved operational efficiency and revenue expectations will drive the biggest factory makeover since the invention of the PLC.

This presents considerable challenges for PLC engineers. To win this market, system designers need to pack more I/O and functionality into smaller volumes. The problem is that the space available from microprocessor digital devices is relatively small. In today's advanced PLC modules, analog and discrete components take up about 85% of the board space. This obvious problem on the circuit board is a key factor that engineers cannot ignore. For micro PLCS and embedded controllers, many analog and discrete components that work well in the early stages take up too much space. Only with higher integration, cross-PLC platform design, can realize the advantages of industry 4.0.

Thanks to the digital revolution, PLCS have become increasingly powerful over the years, able to handle more inputs, wider bytes and more complex instruction sets. Now, innovations in simulation and sensor technology are helping manufacturers leverage computing resources, both inside the factory and in the cloud. Industry 4.0 represents the vision of integrating this intelligence with a wide range of detection, distributed control, and reliable, seamless connectivity.

The steady progression of Moore's Law has led to machines with enormous processing power. Enterprises can handle terabyte or even PB level data, thus strengthening the management of the decision-making level, constantly discovering new markets, and optimizing the process. For manufacturers, the biggest challenge is to collect data and act on it. Three major technology trends are emerging to address this problem:

The biggest problem with PLC is that no one sees the real problem. According to recent market research, most engineers still believe that digital technology offers the best opportunity to save space. And the digital chip in the PLC module only occupies 15% to 20% of the circuit board space. The real problem is that analog and discrete components take up most of the PCB space. These devices occupy up to 85% of the circuit board space in the PLC module. However, these devices do not have large-scale integration like digital chips, so they need higher integration to save PCB space.