Atmel, HMT and MESCO Cooperate to Provide Turn-Key Solutions for Integrated IO-Link Devices

Turn-key solutions for integrated IO-Link devices provides designers overall savings in bill-of-material and board space. The IO-Link reference design combines each company’s proven components including Atmel’s AVR™ microcontrollers, HMT’s PHY IC and MESCO’s IO-Link stack to create the industry’s smallest IO-Link reference design. IO-Link is the upcoming industrial control communication standard that will introduce several benefits for the end user, including easier cabling, remote diagnostics and configuration. Atmel, HMT, and MESCO Engineering have placed a strong focus on saving board space throughout the development and can now offer the TM96.0 GENIE Explorer Variant A reference design. Measuring only 6 by 20 mm, this is the smallest reference design available in the industry today. The TM96.0-A reference design demonstrates high integration of the Atmel, HMT and MESCO solution. It acts as an IO-Link device and is equipped with a push button, 2 LEDs and a potentiometer to allow developers to add stimuli to the system. The reference design runs the MESCO IO-Link stack on an Atmel ATtiny88 microcontroller and communicates on the IO-Link cable using HMT’s HMT7742 PHY IC…

TM96.0-A demonstrator and the TM96.0-B development kit
(Photos: Atmel)