NEC Electronics today announced an addition to its family of development kits for the PROFINET industrial Ethernet controller, ERTEC (Enhanced Real-Time Ethernet Controller).This new, low cost ERTEC development kit delivers further choice to PROFINET application developers.

NEC Electronics’ development kit can be utilized as a low cost entry vehicle for developers that are beginning to evaluate PROFINET and ERTEC200. For those developers already familiar with PROFINET or those that are ready to begin their application development the standard ERTEC200 and ERTEC400 kits include more sophisticated features and functions.

The difference between the two kits is that the lower cost ERTEC200 kit includes a soft PLC that runs on a PC, and the standard kits include a hardware PLC card with a PCI interface which enables developers to take advantage of PROFINET IRT features. In both cases developers can set up a controller-device pair to test the full capability of their applications. 

The whole family now supports the eCOS license-free, royalty-free real time operating system and Eclipse development tools. A JTAG debug tool is also included. All kits come with demonstration programs and simulation software to help ease developers into PROFINET application design.