It is a fact of life that the needs of general-purpose-computing drive microprocessor trends. Simple semiconductor-fabrication economics makes mass-marketable designs very inexpensive, while making designs aimed at smaller market segments, such as CNC, cost prohibitive.
“Advances in technology help all technologies in a general way,” says Paul NickelsbergCONTROL ENGINEERING China版权所有, president and chief technical officer at Orchid Technologies Engineering and Consulting Inc. [www.orchid-tech.com]
The underlying “big i
Starting in the mid-20th Century, and accelerating thereafter, technology was developed to substitute servomotors for geared axis drives (numerical control — NC), with computers calculating intermediate data points for the servos by interpolation from waypoints (computer numerical control — CNC). As computer technology advanced from vacuum tubes to discrete transistors to integrated circuits to, finally, microprocessorsCONTROL ENGINEERING China版权所有, these new developments rapidly found their way into CNC machines.
“Enhancements in microprocessor technology,” says Roger Hartwww.cechina.cn, manager of real-time software R&D with Siemens Energy and Automation, [www.sea.siemens.com] “have allowed more functions to be added to the CNCwww.cechina.cn, and they have allowed CNC performance to be improved.”
“These widely used chips and microprocessors provide a very scalable platform and enough performance at any level,” says Karl Rapp, manager of automation and machine tool branch at Bosch Rexroth. [www.boschrexroth-us.com] “Since the software and firmware is developed for this platform, CNC OEMs can easily provide control solutions that run on the processor of the machine HMI.”
The bad news
The bad news is that sometimes there is a disconnect between what CNC machine technology needs and what general-purpose computing provides. For