New-Tech Europe | February 2019

Pathways Toward the Self-Aware Digital Factory For the past several years, Maxim has worked to create pathways for design engineers to realize their Industry 4.0 goals. At electronica 2014, the company demonstrated its Micro PLC platform, consisting of more than 75 ICs that work together to deliver 10x smaller size and more than 50% power savings compared to a typical PLC from that year. Two years later, Maxim brought to electronica 2016 the Pocket IO development platform, which enables design engineers to create, prototype, and fine-tune industrial control systems. The platform provides analog and digital I/O capability, motion control, and IO-Link intelligent sensor technology, reducing the PLC footprint to just under 10 cubic inches with a 30% power reduction compared to the previous platform. While Pocket IO continued the momentum of shrinking form factor, it also demonstrated a flexible manufacturing capability allowing dynamic, on-the-fly adjustment of the manufacturing line. Then, at electronica 2018, Maxim offered another look at the latest technologies enabling the self- aware digital factory. The company demonstrated the Go-IO reference design (MAXREFDES212), which is a next-generation industrial IO solution that increases productivity, furthers

adaptive manufacturing, and provides machine-level health and status information for making critical, real- time decisions. Go-IO, which packs 17 configurable IOs in a space one-half the size of a credit card, unleashes the full power of the IIoT, enabling productivity-enhancing self-diagnostic capabilities in automated factory subsystems, thus driving intelligence to the edge. As with autonomous cars, the deployment of autonomous robotics in industrial environments would need to be done in a measured way to ensure that the equipment can be trusted to make the right decisions. After all, it’s an inconvenience if a robot picks and packs the wrong item for a shipment. But the repercussions could be much more harmful if the wrong decision is made on, say, an oil rig or a nuclear power plant. The immediate challenge is to achieve a higher level of performance in which AI and decision-making are done in real-time at the edge of the manufacturing line, where equipment can be monitored and actions taken to improve environmental and human safety. Industry 5.0 promises to continue the efficiency and productivity momentum, while bringing human workers new opportunities behind the machines.

the factory. And as in many automated factories, the components need to work in harsh, fan-less environments at the edge of the manufacturing floor where real-time decisions can be made. As a result, there is a continued need to shrink the PLC footprint and reduce the amount of heat dissipated by the components. A new class of silicon products is needed to support the demands of Industry 5.0 and its self-aware digital factories. A key criterion of these new products will be the ability to self-adjust its parameters in order to deliver a flexible I/O solution. Imagine that—silicon solutions that can make configuration choices on-the-fly! In addition, processors will need to be more powerful to run the algorithms. Power ICs must continue to strive to achieve higher efficiencies to reduce power dissipation and provide the ability to offer a higher level of density. This could, in turn, yield very compact, integrated isolated power modules. Analog I/O products need to be increasingly precise, while digital I/O products must operate at increasingly high speeds in order to deliver information to the microprocessor faster. Everything will need to be smaller, more power efficient, and more robust to withstand the harsh electrical and thermal environment that marks the automated factory (or even utility plants and the like).

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