By 2028, the global Industry 4.0 market is expected to exceed $279 billion with a compound annual growth rate of 16.3%. While developers and manufacturers have become accustomed to this rapid growth, its effects are only beginning to be felt. By combining the capabilities of cloud computing, the Internet of Things (IoT) and artificial intelligence (AI), Industry 4.0 will continue to elevate the level of digitization, automation and connected computing in manufacturing in the coming years, driving more enterprises to embrace the fourth Industrial Revolution.

TM25LP As Industry 4.0 accelerates, many industrial standards and processes will change, as many industrial systems require advanced computing engines and multiple types of modern connectivity standards, including industrial Ethernet, Wi-Fi, and 5G. In addition, there is a growing focus on more advanced software tools and applications such as predictive maintenance, functional safety, robotic automation, and more.

In turn, manufacturers need advanced technologies to drive interconnection, efficient data processing, and system and service optimization while maintaining resilient security. With their programmability, high performance, low power and security features, field programmable gate arrays (FPgas) are fast becoming the tool of choice for developers to meet these needs and keep pace with the Industry 4.0 revolution.

TM25LP

Industrial Standards at a glance

As Industry 4.0 evolves, standards such as OPC Unified Architecture (OPC-UA) and Time Sensitive Networking (TSN) are merging to better aggregate and scale the massive amounts of new data generated every day. As an inter-machine communication protocol, OPC-UA provides a secure, platform-independent, service-oriented architecture. When combined with TSN’s outstanding real-time capabilities, OPC-UA is a critical framework for providing manufacturers with continuous insight and data flow without disrupting operations or safety.

TM25LP As a result of the consolidation of standards, highly specialized technologies are required for developers to implement the OPC-UA and TSN frameworks and for manufacturers to comply with the new regulatory requirements to ensure continued development. To meet these needs, Lattice offers application-specific FPGA solutions, such as the Lattice Automate™ solution collection, which supports OPC-UA and TSN, providing customers with new factory automation and industrial machine vision capabilities. Lattice is also committed to the OPC-UA migration, joining the OPC Foundation in March 2022 to offer OPC-UA module courses on the Lattice Insights official training platform. This official training portal is designed to help system and application designers maximize their FPGA design experience.