TSN end equipment examples or where can TSN be used in today's and tomorrow's systems? We will look at several examples from the TI.com website where we showcase end equipment reference designs. Our first example from the out factory automation space is the PLC. Such a programmable logic controller or SPS system typically requires a processor and additional circuits around it.

Area such as power require adaptation to the dedicated system. So here, the end equipment reference design will lead to suggested devices in any of the spaces. Other blocks such as Ethernet phy, clocking, protection, or isolation, are usually re-usable. A typical PLC may also require additional communication and direct analog and digital I/Os. This gets completed with system functions that has voltage supervision and temperature monitoring to complete our block diagram.

Our next example is the Ethernet communication module. It does have a very similar block diagram as the PLC. But as the PLC is usually the master or controller in the networking environment, the Ethernet communication module needs to be served as master or device. So it can be included in a chain of devices, and therefore, requires two ports.

However, it does require less computation power as the main application is executed on the main host. And not on the local processing of the device. It also usually does not have other direct I/O features. The Ethernet communication module is quite cost sensitive in the design space.

Our final example is a standalone remote I/O. This device typically has at least two Ethernet ports. So it can be implemented in a daisy chain fashion inside the network. Its main function is to provide input and output. So it can be implemented in analog, digital, or other ways of inputs and outputs.

The communication interface however, is usually common over several designs that embed different ways of input and output. The single networking interface usually supports many I/O channels. So implementing 4, 8, or 16 channels with one networking interface is a common technology here.

Another special case of the remote I/O is the bus coupler. The bus coupler usually implements as a backplane gateway where additional modules can be connected in a stacked fashion to implement any kind of channel complexity on the system. On top of those three end equipment examples just discussed, we can find many end equipments in industrial space that are adding Ethernet connectivity today.

So industrial communication and TSN requirements apply to more and more end equipments because connectivity becomes a must to have. On top of that, Ethernet replaces many of the traditional field buses or serial standards such as CAN, RS-485, MODBUS, or PROFIBUS. So the engineering challenge is to implement multiple standards at low cost and manageable effort.

Today, engineers have to cope with multiple software stacks and frameworks depending on the standards they want to implement. The certification efforts enhance all of the time in terms of complexity and cost. So TSN usually is seen as a relief to overcome certain issues with multi-protocol implementations. But initially, it's adding also more options until the industry has converged on certain use cases and profiles for TSN.

On top of that, there are still some issues to be solved. For example, if you use TSN with one gigabit, it usually increases the power consumption and latency, especially on the phys.

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