(pressebox) (Poing, 2010-02-09) Silica, an Avnet company (NYSE: AVT), pan-European semiconductor distributor, is appearing at this year's Embedded World fair in Nuremberg (March 2nd - 4th, 2010) entirely under the banner of "Networking for automation systems".

There will be a live demonstration of controlling a highstack shelving system based on EtherCAT (Ethernet for Control Automation Technology) standards. The highstack shelving system is used as an example to show how many things industrial Ethernet can do.

The system was designed, built and programmed entirely by SILICA's applications engineers. All the specialists involved in developing it will be on hand and available to visitors for firsthand information throughout the fair.

The system is controlled via a process control system running as software under Microsoft's Windows Embedded Standard on an Intel® Atom(TM) platform which serves both as EtherCAT master and industrial PC. The model's sensors and actuators are interfaced via a slave module, demonstrating how the EtherCAT standard is realised with an FPGA core on a Xilinx FPGA. Galvanically separated interfaces linking the 3.3 V and 24 V domains use Infineon and STMicroelectronics modules.

Both the highstack shelving system's input and output stations have RFID readers implemented with NFC chips by NXP and barcode readers which analyse camera signals using a Renesas microcontroller. Readout data is sent to the PLC in the industrial PC and processed there. A live image of the demo is sent from a CCTV camera using a Blackfin processor by Analog Devices.

SILICA's appearance at the fair reflects its total solutions and technical support strategy: its own application developed inhouse enables specialists to deal with typical problems and the complex applications involved directly.

SILICA is at Halle 12, Stand 241, and is also represented as coexhibitor on Microsoft's Stand 11-318.

About Avnet Silica (An Avnet Company): Silica, an Avnet, Inc. (NYSE:AVT) company, is one of the leading semiconductor distributors in Europe. Silica accelerates its customers' success by connecting 25 technology suppliers with a broad base of more than 15,000 customers and providing indepth design support and costeffective, valueadded services and solutions. For more information, visit www.silica.com