M57 (MEN MIKRO)

The M57 is based on the M-Module ANSI mezzanine standard. It can be used as an I/O extension in any type of bus system, i.e. CPCI, PXI, VME or on any type of stand-alone SBC. Appropriate M-Module carrier cards in 3U, 6U and other formats are available from MEN or other manufacturers. The M57 is a Profibus DP (Distributed Peripherals) interface. The M-Module is based on the ASPC 2 controller and the 16-MHz Motorola MC68331 CPU. It is an ideal interface solution for intelligent remote I/O applications via a very popular fieldbus standard. The ASPC 2 is an advanced Profibus controller allowing 127 stations with 254 SAPs (Service Access Points) each. It allows data transfer rates of up to 12 Mbaud on the M57. The MC68331 is a 68020-based CPU which handles communication with the host CPU via the on-board 1MB of shared DRAM. The advantage of this Profibus application using the MC68331 is that the complete Profibus protocol stack runs locally on the M-Module with very reduced interaction of the host CPU. The Profibus firmware consists of the true Softing protocol stack. The corresponding driver software comes from MEN and complies with the standard Softing PROFIBUS DP Configurator tool. It supports configuration of the M57 for each application in a very convenient way. The driver is based on MDIS (MEN Driver Interface System) which makes the M57 ready for use under Windows, Linux and RTOS environments. The optically isolated RS485 Profibus interface is supplied by an on-board DC/DC converter.