April 18
22
I
ndustrial
I
o
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QorIQ processor integrates four
technologies needed for Industry 4.0
By Joseph Byrne and Jeff Steinheider,
NXP
NXP’s new QorIQ Layerscape
LS1028A processor integrates
on a single chip the 4 technologies
needed in next-generation
industrial systems: time-sensitive net-
working, high-performance
processing, hardware-accelerated
user interfaces, and high security.
Under a transformation known as Indus-
try 4.0, leading manufacturers are busy con-
ceiving and creating the intelligent industrial
enterprise of the future. By merging their
information technology (IT) and operational
technology (OT) domains, they’re build-
ing next-generation smart systems to opti-
mize manufacturability, improve operations,
enhance customer support, and analyze real-
time data provided by the Industrial Internet
of Things (IoT). The IoT concept, in its most
reduced form, is about connecting embedded
systems to the broader world. More broadly,
it encompasses data analysis (often in the
cloud), human interaction, and security. The
challenge is to assemble in one place four req-
uisite industrial IoT technologies: networking,
processing, user interface, and security. The
new NXP QorIQ Layerscape LS1028A proces-
sor meets this challenge.
The merger of IT and OT is only possible by
adapting the networks that bind each domain.
Because the domains differ so greatly in func-
tion, their networks fundamentally differ. The
IT domain encompasses systems that trans-
form data into useful information. For a man-
ufacturer, it includes common systems like
accounting, email, and customer-relationship
management, and it also includes manufactur-
ing-specific systems for planning and logistics.
These are computer-based systems without
hard real-time constraints and can use the
best-effort approach of regular Ethernet. The
OT domain includes the systems used to make
materials into products, real-time embedded
systems for process control, workflow man-
agement, and process monitoring. A factory
may use an Industrial Ethernet technology
that adapts standard Ethernet to deliver real-
time response and work with legacy industrial
communication protocols. Unfortunately, the
many Industrial Ethernet protocols neither
interoperate with each other nor with stan-
dard Ethernet, limiting the economies of scale
for technology suppliers and thus slowing
innovation. A single machine in a factory may
connect to different Industrial Ethernet net-
works, each running its specific protocol, for
different control functions, as figure 1 shows.
The manufacturer must deploy gateways to
pass data among the different networks or to
IT systems.
Because of their limited interoperability,
Industrial Ethernet protocols are not well
suited to Industry 4.0. At the same time, stan-
dard IT-oriented Ethernet does not deliver
the real-time performance that control sys-
tems demand. The IEEE, however, in 2004
had formed a group for audio/video stream-
ing for consumer applications, later extend-
ing its efforts to meet professional standards.
This group developed a family of audio/video
bridging (AVB) standards for synchronizing
devices on a network to the same timebase
(borrowing from IEEE 1588), traffic shaping,
and admission controls. Although not per-
fectly suited to industrial applications, these
standards provided a framework for manag-
ing Ethernet traffic.
Recognizing the potential to adapt AVB for
industrial use, the IEEE group changed its
name to Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN)
and began revising the 802 standards family
to address the needs of industrial and auto-
motive applications, as well as improving fea-
tures for professional audio-video use. New
standards define time-aware traffic shaping
and policing to enable scheduling critical traf-
fic. To facilitate scheduling, new standards
enabled the preemption of non-critical frames.
A new standard for redundant network paths
improves network reliability. Industrial com-
panies can now deploy a single IEEE-stan-
dard Ethernet network that carries both the
time-critical control traffic of OT systems
and the regular best-effort traffic of IT sys-
tems. Now that pivotal networking technolo-
gies for the industrial IoT are defined, these
companies can focus on the strategic benefits
of OT-IT convergence and Industry 4.0.Just
as networks must support time-critical func-
tions, so must processing. A real-time operat-
ing system (RTOS) helps ensure that a CPU is
