Micro-electronics already provide the components needed for Industry 4.0. Yet there is still very much a need for further development, as Antonio Fernandez, Director Technical Marketing EBV Elektronik, asserts. He regards Industry 4.0 as a fantastic opportunity for the entire semiconductor industry. But rather more than electronic chips will be required to create successful applications. Fernandez explains how EBV developers are supporting the design of new Industry 4.0 products.
What does Industry 4.0 mean for EBV as a distributor of semiconductors and electronic components?
Antonio Fernandez: Industry 4.0 is inconceivable without micro-electronics. Exciting possibilities are opening up for the entire semiconductor industry to penetrate a new market with new as well as existing solutions. We offer equipment and system manufacturers a comprehensive kit of micro-electronic components enabling them to create applications for the Smart Factory. For EBV, it is a fantastic opportunity to service our customers in a revolutionary challenge, proving our competence in support and our applications know-how.
Is Industry 4.0 currently purely a research topic? Or are there applications in industry that have already been realised?
A.F.: Industry 4.0 is the next big thing happening in factory automation, moving to the next level of connectivity and distributed intelligence. But it is by no means just a vision: we have helped a number of customers to develop solutions for the Smart Factory which are already being applied in practice. Essentially, most of the technologies for Industry 4.0 already exist, and there are already lots of individual solutions being applied in the industrial sphere which have affirmed the promises of Industry 4.0: energy and cost savings, higher productivity and more flexibility.
What do you regard as the biggest challenges on the way towards implementing Industry 4.0?
A.F.: Rethinking the role of every single system in the factory, looking for how to improve processes, taking advantage of the interaction between the systems, and managing securely the significant amount of data generated.
What can EBV do as a distributor to tackle these challenges?
A.F.: Firstly, we promote the key semiconductors from reliable partners – reliable in terms of desired functionality, as well as in terms of support and delivery capability. We continuously train our technical team in all the relevant technologies, and in the new chips being launched onto the market by our manufacturer partners. This enables our field application engineers to provide customers with comprehensive support in the development process. We also work on reference designs incorporating our specialist know-how in the creation of system solutions. They provide our customers with turn-key solutions for many tasks – including, for example, to interconnect the various elements which have to communicate with each other along a value chain. We are able also to advise developers on the relevant communications interfaces and standards.
What products does EBV offer for Industry 4.0?
A.F.: Basically, all the micro-electronic modules needed to create a complete Industry 4.0 solution: microcontrollers, application processors and FPGAs for control, Ethernet transceivers, switches and wireless modules (Wi-Fi, BLE) for communications. Sensors and analogue front ends to measure physical magnitudes also play a major role in our portfolio, as do hardware-based solutions for data security.
Are there any technological developments in electronics that are geared towards use in Industry 4.0?
A.F.: The use of electronic chips in industry poses particular challenges in terms of robustness and reliability, but also with regard to long-term availability on the market – after all, industrial plant tends to be much longer-lived than consumer products, for example. We can already benefit from new derivatives coming from the automotive market for industrial applications, higher integration of peripherals, focus on real-time Ethernet software libraries and longevity programmes to support industrial life cycles.
Industry 4.0 is also a major software topic – over and above the hardware issue, what else does EBV do to help application developers?
A.F.: We push our manufacturer partners to develop valuable and easy to use software libraries and tools, we offer and support several reference designs and we build and maintain a network of third parties and design centres that can offer very specific support and services to our customers.
