With its new products, Deutschmann Automation is responding to increased demand for modules with a higher performance. The UNIGATE IC2 Profibus module, which has just been presented, is based on the tried and tested UNIGATE IC series from the manufacturer based in Bad Camberg in central Hesse. By using processors of the ARM Cortex-M4 type, Deutschmann claims to be achieving a significant jump in performance. The embedded IC2 series should deliver much higher transmission rates in communication via SPI or UART. Using the UART interface, baud rates of 7.5 MBaud are possible. In SPI Bus master mode, communication runs at 12 Mbit/s, with a future target of 33 Mbit/s. In slave mode, 10 Mbit/s is still possible.

The new IC2 series is pin-compatible with the previous IC series. The firmware used in the IC2 allows processing of existing scripts to make the protocol connection. Deutschmann is making the Protocol Developer Tool available free of charge for script programming. Depending on the commands used, the processing time for scripts should be reduced by a factor of 50 to 80 in comparison to the predecessor; simple scripts will be processed in just a few microseconds.