| Fieldbus Communications Support |
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The Internal | The STB NIB 1010’s process image contains memory areas (buffers) for the |
Process Image | temporary storage of input and output data. The internal process image is part of the |
| NIM’s island bus scanner area. |
| The island bus manages data exchange in both directions: |
| input data from the island |
| gathering data as well as status and confirmation bits and putting them into the |
| process image’s input buffer. |
| output data to the island |
| places it in the process image’s output buffer. |
| Input data and output data are assembled in the order of the island bus I/O modules |
| (from left to right). |
Word |
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Every entry in the process image is in a | |
Boundaries and | island bus have input or output data entries that are not multiple words, the |
Bit Packing | corresponding word in the process image is moved to the next word boundary. |
| For example, a module with one bit of output data starts on a word boundary in the |
| process image’s output data buffer. The next process image entry starts on the next |
| word boundary, thereby transmitting 15 unused bits of the module’s first word, |
| resulting in latency during data transmission on the fieldbus. |
| Bit packing allows bits of data on the fieldbus from different digital I/O modules to be |
| put together in a single byte, resulting in optimized bandwidth. |
Bit Packing |
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The STB NIB 1010 NIM observes the following rules for the bit packing of the | |
Rules | external process image: |
| The input and output process image sizes are limited to 16 words each. |
| The first word of the input process image contains NIM status information. The |
| first word of the output process image contains the NIM control word. |
| Bit packing follows the addressing order of the island bus I/O modules, from left |
| to right in the basic segment. |
| When the data object (or echo output data object) for a specific module is |
| available, it precedes the status object for that module. |
| Status objects and data objects for the same or different I/O module may be |
| packed in the same word if the size of the combined objects is 16 bits or less. |
| If the combination of objects requires more than 16 bits, the objects will be placed |
| in separate contiguous bytes. A single object cannot be split over two |
| word boundaries. |
| For standard analog input modules, channel 1 data is followed immediately by |
| channel 1 status, then channel 2 data and channel 2 status. |
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890USE19600 April 2004 | 39 |