PC Card for SoftPLC
ISA CIF 30-COM /-COS
PCI CIF 50-COM /-COS
PCMCIA CIF 60-COM
PC/104 CIF 104-COM /-COS
Compact PCI CIF 80-COM/COS

The family of communication interfaces CIF are intelligent PC boards for all major fieldbus networks. All have the same easy to use dual-port memory interface and work with the same driver. There are different types of boards available, depending on the PC bus, the format of the board and if it works as master or slave on the CAN bus.

The data exchange of the PDOs between PC application and communication interface is done with a process image in the dual-port memory. SDOs are handled as commands via mailboxes. The data transfer can be done cyclic or event driven in poll or interrupt mode. Online diagnostic and also the configuration can be done via the dual-port memory or the RS-232 diagnostic port. The firmware and configuration data are stored in a Flash zero-voltage secure memory. This means that the communication interface is ready for operation immediately after switching on the PC.

These boards are supported from all leading Soft PLCs. For the operating systems Windows 95, Windows NT, Windows 2000, and Windows XP there are device drivers available. For other systems and in case of special demands a tool kit can be ordered that describes the dual-port memory in details and contains C-functions as an example code.

The configuration and online diagnostic is done by the system configurator SyCon. This tool can configure all the major fieldbus systems with a common look and feel. SyCon is written in C++ and runs under Windows 95, Windows NT, Windows 2000 or Windows XP. Based on the EDS files it allows a graphical input of the individual nodes, configuration of the SDOs and the address mapping of the PDOs within the process data image.