HISTORY

In 1983, Phoenix Contact began work on a specification for an industrial fieldbus. Work
continued together with computer manufacturers and technical colleges, and a protocol and
hardware definition for a realtime-capable sensor/actuator bus was developed and presented
at the Hanover Fair in 1987. The primary field of application of this bus system - originally
known as Interbus-S - was to be the speed-optimized time-deterministic transmission of
sensor/actuator data (process data). Over the next few years, an extensive and varied range of
bus components and field devices would be developed by Phoenix Contact and other
manufacturers. Interbus-S developed into one of the world's leading fieldbus systems in
industrial automation.
As the use of open control systems and the development of PC-based automation
solutions increased from around the mid-nineties onwards, the bus system was renamed
INTERBUS and a determined focus was placed on distributed automation using factory-wide
uniform and standardized communication structures. Milestones in this phase of its
development include:
1995 : Development of INTERBUS Loop (also known as the sensor loop, installation local
bus) as a logical extension of INTERBUS "downwards", towards the technical
process, for the direct connection of sensors/actuators via a two-wire cable
1996 : Launch of the new G4 modules (G4 = Generation 4) for connecting INTERBUS
"upwards" with the office world (PC, Ethernet, TCP/IP); founding of the Open
Control User Group
1997 : Launch of INTERBUS INLINE, another component based on INTERBUS technology
for individual and networked automation solutions
The advent of industrial Ethernet technology in the year 2000 considerably encouraged the
integration of INTERBUS and Ethernet/TCP/IP for the creation of consistent communication
structures for industrial automation.
1998 : INTERBUS became the world's leading fieldbus system with a market share of
37.4%. More than 2.5 million devices are in use and 2000 device types are available from
1000 manufacturers.

FEATURES

Consists of thousand of nodes.

Hosted by by a PC or programmable controller.

requires a "master" controller card with an Interbus ASIC, a Motorola 68332 microcontroller,
and Interbus firmware.

Interbus master card was too sophisticated and expensive.

ADVANTAGES

the stability and universality of the system.

flexible control systems, the performance and function of which can be adapted to changing
requirements without interrupting the system.

Interbus is a high-speed, reliable, plant floor network that allows a large number of nodes to
be addressed over great distances without signal degradation.

DISADVANTAGES

the slower access then the direct reading or writing the dual-port memory.

Possible slow communication speed of large blockdata transfers

If one node goes down the whole network is down