Macnica Cytech announces a MIE SoC module which transfers Mechatrolink III to EtherCAT Master

Mechatrolink III by YASKAWA Electric Corporation is an advanced industrial ethernet technique, which is widely used in CNC machining field, and is frequently applied in servo devices. However, it faces the shortage of compatible I/O or sensing equipment. In China, I/O or sensing equipment mostly applies EtherCAT.

Macnica Cytech announces a MIE SoC module which transfers Mechatrolink III to EtherCAT Master. The module solves the lack of compatible equipment of Mechatrolink III. It enables quick access to reduce system load. The module also supports multiple I/O device access

The main system supports two protocols at the same time and this increases the cost of setting up the system. In addition, the difficulty of system development causes large input of both software and hardware. Also, the huge burden of CPU will lead to increased cost for system update.

Refer to the image and graph below for the actual MIE SoC module and structure diagram. The basis is Intel Cyclone V SoC module, a small SoC which can self-start when power is on.

• Main Processing Chip: Intel Cyclone V SoC
  • Integrated ARM-Cortex A9 dual core processor
  • Integrated FPGA
• Module Peripherals
  • QSPI Flash (16MB)
  • DDR3 *16bit (512MB)
  • Integrated 4 channels 100M PHY
    • 2 Mechatrolink Slave
    • 2 EtherCAT Master
• PCB
  • 12 layers, 54mm*54mm
  • Stamp hole design

The FPGA part integrates two Mechatrolink III slave and EtherCAT master IPs under Macnica Cytech’s property right, and data conversion between Mechatrolink III and EtherCAT. The MIE SoC module not only transfers Mechatrolink III Slave to EtherCAT master, but also can achieve a dual master system (Mechatrolink III master + EtherCAT master). The ARM A9 processor on FPGA chip completes the initializations of Mechatrolink III and EtherCAT, periodic interruption processing, exception handling etc.