Hannover, Germany – April 16, 2007

ODVA announced today it has published new editions of the specifications for the family of CIP Networks, which includes updates for EtherNet/IP™, DeviceNet™, CompoNet™, ControlNet™ and CIP Safety™. These new editions represent the first publication update of these specifications in 2007, and they bring a range of enhancements to the specifications aimed at delivering increased ease of configuration for users.

All together, the new editions include fourteen Specification Enhancements. Among the enhancements, the following are especially noteworthy:

• Full reset while keeping communication settings: This option allows for the reset of a device to the "out-of-box" (or factory) defaults, except for the communication parameters, such as node number and data rate. This feature is designed to save users time when reconfiguring the devices on their system by giving the user more flexibility in the available options for resetting a device.
• Increase in maximum connection size: The Connection Configuration Object has been enhanced to include support for connections up to 64k bytes, keeping pace with the fast growing popularity of EtherNet/IP and the need to support its 1500 byte Ethernet packet size and the 64K message size supported by the Internet Protocol (IP) fragmentation. 
• Improved off-link browsing for DeviceNet: An option for an active node table has been added for CIP routers, which makes it no longer necessary for the off-link browsing tool to have to wait for timeouts for node numbers that are not present on a remote DeviceNet network. Through the use of this option, the CIP router can know that certain nodes are not present, allowing it to immediately respond to the off-link request. This can reduce browsing time significantly, especially for smaller networks.

CIP™ is a single, media-independent protocol common to all of the family of CIP Networks, and it provides the interoperability and interchangeability essential to open networks and open systems. The current editions of the specifications are as follows:

The EtherNet/IP Specification (Vol. 1, Edition 3.2; Vol. 2, Edition 1.3)
The DeviceNet Specification (Vol. 1, Edition 3.2; Vol. 3, Edition 1.4)
The CompoNet Specification (Vol. 1, Edition 3.2; Vol. 6, Edition 1.1)
The ControlNet Specification (Vol. 1, Edition 3.2; Vol. 4, Edition 1.1)
The CIP Safety Specification (Vol. 5, Edition 1.3)

The next publication of updated editions for the above specifications is planned for the fourth quarter of 2007.

About ODVA
ODVA is an international association comprised of members from the world's leading automation companies. Collectively, ODVA and its members support network technologies using the Common Industrial Protocol (CIP™). These currently include DeviceNet™, EtherNet/IP™, CompoNet™, and the major extensions to CIP — CIP Safety™, CIP Sync™, and CIP Motion™. ODVA manages the development of these open technologies, and assists manufacturers and users of CIP Networks through tools, training and marketing activities. In addition, ODVA offers conformance testing to help ensure that products built to its specifications operate in multi-vendor systems. ODVA also is active in other standards’ development organizations and industry consortia to drive the growth of open communication standards. For more information, visit its web site at www.odva.org.

For more information, contact:

Adrienne Meyer
Manager, Marketing Communications
ODVA
4220 Varsity Drive, Suite A, Ann Arbor, MI 48108-5006 USA
tel +1 734 975 8840; fax +1 734 922 0027; email ameyer@odva.org 


or


John Jackson
ODVA EMEA Communications Office
43 Quarry Bank, Tonbridge, Kent TN9 2QZ UK
Tel: +44 (0) 1732 352 371; email jjackson@odva.org