Study shows DeviceNet widely adopted

08/01/1998

Study shows DeviceNet widely adopted

A recent user study by industry analyst Venture Development Corp. (VDC) reports extensive and expanding adoption of DeviceNet - the sensor actuator bus adopted by a large percent of semiconductor manufacturing equipment suppliers.

VDC found that DeviceNet is used by most manufacturing end user and machinery OEMs (30%) and instrument & control device suppliers (44%). The study forecasts that the US market for device and sensor buses will grow to 2.7 million nodes in five years (there are typically 10-20 nodes connected to a bus) and that DeviceNet will account for the largest share - 903,000 - over one-third the total.

VDC also forecasts that electrical and electronics manufacturing, of which the semiconductor industry is a prominent part, will have the fastest growth rate in adopting DeviceNet - an explosive compound annual growth rate of 49% of nodes over the next five years.

The industry`s move to 300-mm wafers has stimulated the adoption of DeviceNet in next-generation process tools. "Applied Materials is committed to using DeviceNet on its 300-mm tools currently under development," said Reg Hunter, electrical engineering manager there. "DeviceNet affords us the benefit of an open protocol in conjunction with a low cost development and implementation environment."

According to Dan Judd, chair of the semiconductor special interest group, Open DeviceNet Vendor Association, "With so many users adopting DeviceNet in the semiconductor industry, it will soon be the industry norm rather than just a competitive advantage."

Judd notes that DeviceNet offers sub-millisecond responses to dynamic and asynchronous events over the network. Its unique architecture allows peer-to-peer implementations to operate with 100% deterministic behavior. Furthermore, its nondestructive priority access scheme provides for 100% bus bandwidth utilization and guarantees message delivery by message priority, not just node address. "No other network in the VDC study is better suited than DeviceNet for flexible, fast and deterministic closed-loop control of machine tools," Judd claims. - P.B.