TEMPERATURE CONTROLLERS: GROWING DIGITAL COMMUNICATION REQUIREMENTS

VDC: During this studytelephone interviews and a detailed e-mail survey with users of these products to ascertain their current and future requirements. Among these were their needs for communication bus/network connectivity. Exhibit 1 shows their requirements for those purchased in 2005 and projections for 2010.

The majority of units purchased in 2005 had communication bus/network connectivity, with a further significant share increase expected by 2010. Having bus/network connectivity is becoming very important as applications become more complex linking more processes together.

DIGITAL COMMUNICATION PROTOCOLS

Users were asked what types of digital communication interfaces were provided on the industrial MP-SL controllers they purchased in 2005, and which they expect in 5 years. These findings are shown in Exhibit 2.

Ethernet is the most popular, and is expected to have the largest increase in share among these users through 2010. Ethernet is inexpensive, mature, highly reliable, and a proven system. However, Exhibit 2 encompasses all Ethernet protocols, and there are many. The data from the user survey is not encouraging that a limited set of Ethernet protocols will gain favor:

• It was found among those using Ethernet, that by far the largest share is using the Ethernet/IP application layer protocol. However, the percentage using this protocol is expected to decline.

• The Modbus TCP application layer protocol was found to be the second most popular among the survey respondents. Only a 2% gain is expected in the share of the Ethernet respondents using this protocol with MP-SL controllers.

• Among other Ethernet application layer protocols, the most popular with these users are PROFInet and HSE. A slight decline in PROFInet popularity is expected. However, an increase in popularity is expected for HSE. HSE is the Foundation Fieldbus high speed backbone network designed for linking controllers in process industry applications.

Industrial Electronic Temperature Controllers-global Market Demand Analysis, 9th Edition

Publ 20060410