EBV Elektronik has announced the Caribou board as a development and evaluation platform for industrial communications. It is based on an OMAP L138/AM1808 ARM microprocessor from Texas Instruments, together with an Altera Cyclone III FPGA and analog interfaces from Texas Instruments. A range of different field buses and interfaces for industrial communications are available for developers, including serial-based field buses.

These include PROFIBUS and IO-Link as well as real-time Ethernet field buses such as EtherCAT, SERCOS-III, PROFINET, EtherNet/IP, Ethernet POWERLINK and IEEE1588. Encoder interfaces such as EnDat, BISS and HIPERFACE DSL can also be implemented. Featuring additional analog components such as analog-to-digital converters (ADCs), digital-to-analog converters (DACs) and pulse-width modulators (PWMs), they provide interfaces to control systems, co-ordinate converters and output stages.

The evaluation platform is for industrial applications in the areas of programmable logic controllers (PLCs), control systems, sensors, motors with integrated controllers, and industrial bus interfaces. Applications also include 3-phase solar inverters and pitch controllers within the field of renewable energies, and test & measurement equipment.