GE Fanuc Emerson | Series 90-70

About GE Fanuc Series 90-70
The GE Fanuc Series 90-70 is a Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) platform engineered by GE Fanuc Automation North America, Inc. This family of PLCs are modular and highly scalable series, that may be designed to implement a wide range of industrial applications.

The Series 90-70 controllers are designed to implement advanced control strategies supporting IEC61131-3 mandated programming languages such as Ladder Logic, Structured Text (ST) and Sequential Function Chart (SFC).

This controller family utilizes the VME bus, allowing Genius I/O modules and Series 90-70 Central Processing Units (CPUs) to connect interact with each other with high speed communication rates with that delay that are almost negligible.

A functional Series 90-70 system is composed of a PLC Rack, Power Supply, and I/O modules at a minimum. However, to meet specific plant requirements, additional modules may be added to the system such as Genius I/O system, Field Control I/O, Programmable Co-processor (PCM), Genius I/O Bus Controller, Remote I/O Scanner, I/O Link Display, Communication Interface modules, and specialty modules are available for installation to the 90-70 system. These modules allows designing of a controller system that meets and exceeds plant control requirements.

User programs, process data and information are configured using a Windows compatible application software, Proficy Machine Edition (ME) Logic Developer. With the utilization of the Microsoft platform, Configuration, Testing, Commissioning and Maintenance of the system are much easier due to the user-friendliness of the Microsoft and programming software environment.

Additionally, the Series 90-70 also supports the LogicMaster 90 programming software, bridging the gap between the legacy and the modern programming style. LogicMaster 90 user programs can be directly migrated to the Proficy Machine Edition using the “import” command and software users are guided to which part of the program that needs retrofitting to the new software.

Not only that it utilizes Microsoft Operating systems, the Series 90-70 CPU is based on the Intel 80X86 or Intel 80X86DX microprocessor along a Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI) Boolean coprocessor (BCP). These technological combinations allows any 90-70 processor to act as a general purpose microprocessor, with the high-speed Boolean execution of ladder elements with a rate of 0.4 microseconds.

Specific CPU models are designed to serve Control Redundancy requirements, particularly, CPU Model 780 (IC697CPU780) is used. A pair of this controller model is used to handle redundancy, One acting as the Primary while the other acting as the Secondary controller. Series 90-70 Platform enhancement also allows CGR935 (IC697CGR935) and CGR772 (IC697CGR772) as redundancy controllers with the use of the Genius Hot Standby (GHS) method.

If Hot Standby is not enough, the Series 90-70 family also features Triple Redundancy support with the use of CPU models 788 (IC697CPU788), 789 (IC697CPU789), and CPM 790 (IC697CPU790). These CPUs are configured along the software embedded instructions and program blocks which provide the redundancy control, operation and autotest of program routines. 

Twenty (20) CPU models are available under the Series 90-70 family. With clock speed ranging from 12 MHz - 96 MHz, I/O capacity range of 512-12288 points, on board user memory range of 32Kbytes - 6Mbytes and Expansion memory ranging from 64-512Kbytes.

PROS:

• Supports a wide variety of industrial applications
• Well range of CPU selection
• Redundancy support
• Triple Redundancy Support
• Intel Based CPU architecture
• Wide variety of Input and Output Modules
• High Scalable
• Support for legacy and modern communication protocols
• Very large I/O capacity range from 512-12288 I/O points
• Scalable design
• Coprocessor support
• Motion control capable

CONS:

• No embedded Webserver for configuration and maintenance.
• Two (2) Programming software applications, LogicMaster 90 and Proficy Machine Edition Logic Developer.
• IoT not ready
• High Cost
• Does not support software-based controllers