Ethernet & Fieldbuses

MEN provides a variety of fieldbus interface and gateway cards as well as Ethernet switch boards and devices with different features that are all qualified or screened for up to -40 to +85°C operating temperature and prepared for conformal coating.

Robust and Modular for Industrial Environments

MEN standard fieldbus functions are either implemented on mezzanine cards or on single-board computers (VMEbus, CompactPCI®/PlusIO/Serial, PCI-104, stand-alone etc.), often with a specific fieldbus provided by the processor or implemented as an IP core in FPGA. They mostly support optical isolation which is essential to increase noise immunity and reliability for robust computing in industrial environments.

MEN has realized fieldbus interface solutions based on CANopen, DeviceNet, Profibus, MVB, WTB, AFDX®, Arinc, Bitbus, WorldFIP and InterBus-S. Gateway solutions comprise for example WTB (Wire Train Bus) to CAN bus.

Ethernet as an Alternative to Fieldbus

Ethernet networks are increasingly becoming an alternative to fieldbuses when price and bandwidth issues together make it necessary to use high-performance standardized transport protocols like TCP/IP or UDP/IP.

The big technological progresses of Fast and Gigabit Ethernet, switching and full-duplex transmission have accelerated development in the industry so that the fieldbuses used today may be replaced by e.g. Profinet, EtherNet/IP, EtherCAT and Ethernet Powerlink. Safety protocols on Industrial Ethernet also have been partly standardized already.

The financial benefit for end users consists in the possibility to use standardized protocols as well as components and assemblies (also of the Ethernet backbone like switches, cables and connectors) with lower product costs. They can benefit from the dynamic development in IT.

MEN offers Ethernet switches as board-level and system solutions (stand-alone, 19", wall-mount, DIN-rail).