Automation Essentials for Thin Film Process Control
(Room Promenade Lobby)
01 May 19
2:50 PM
-
3:00 PM
Tracks:
Vendor Innovator Showcase
Industrial automation has come a long way. With all the advancements in computing technology, memory and speed, this translates into big improvements…and not just for home computing.
Today’s industrial equipment manufacturers need to take advantage of these new tools. Semicore uses the Microsoft Windows based Industrial PC for the GUI (Graphical User Interface) controller because it is familiar to people, other commonly used applications can be installed on it, third party software can be loaded to allow interface to other hardware as required, and so on.
The actual machine control software is not resident on the GUI PC. Just like the PLC’s of yesterday, having an autonomous controller for the heavy lifting of system control routines offered a stable platform for repeatability, Semicore uses an embedded controller for the machine control code (not yesterday’s ladder logic however…). It communicates with the GUI using EtherCAT. This is the latest communication interface currently being used by many of the larger OEMS. Semicore has been doing it since 2008. EtherCAT is fast, immune to noise, and simple to connect.
With the best foundation yet, Semicore has built an advanced, robust software automation control package that interfaces with not only control hardware, but many of the system components as well. This presentation will review the current features and benefits of Semicore’s automation platform that is deployed across the current product portfolio.