Embedded Systems Academy

Another year has passed that proved to be challenging for everyone in the position of buying semiconductor components or products based on them. Many of our customers and partners have their own stories to share about “creative solutions” to dealing with supply chain issues. Here is an example from one of our customers:

He approached us over a broken CANopen joystick – used in a very expensive machinery – and the machine could no longer be used. The joystick supplier was not able to deliver the joystick, but he could deliver a generic version without the CANopen interface, using digital and analog outputs instead. The question was, how fast could we modify the firmware of our CANopen generic I/O module so that it could be used with the generic joystick and then integrated into the machine.

Custom firmware requests are quite common, however usually combined with some volume purchase of the modules involved. Here, the required quantity was ‘one’.

Luckily the required changes were minimal and most settings could be made via the CANopen configuration (Node ID and bitrate settings, PDO communication and mapping settings). Within a few consulting hours, we were able to deliver a prototype based on our CANopenIA-M0 starter kit. After just one more minor re-configuration the system worked again. The starter kit was embedded in an industrial rugged housing and mounted into the machine near the operator – and it was back to work.

To ensure continuous availability of the CANopenIA modules we, like so many others in the industry, were forced to do a re-design – not necessarily to add new functionality, but just to have multiple sourcing options for the modules.

As a result, within 2023 we expect that our proven and popular CANopenIA-M0 system- on-module will be available in a total of three hardware versions. The two new modules will offer 100% pin-by-pin backward compatibility. In addition, the latest version will not only support classical CANopen but also CANopen FD and provide direct access to faster and higher resolution analog inputs.

We wish our clients and partners a quiet and relaxing transition to 2023 and may the supply chain issues be less challenging this year.

Andy, Chris and Olaf