Mr. Kleineberg, what potential do you think SPE technology has?

Kleineberg: SPE has the potential to cover a large part of industrial communication at field level in the long term, as it is either on a par with or even better than existing fieldbus systems in terms of bandwidth, range and installation effort and also offers significant added value. The changeover to SPE will take place at different speeds in different areas of industrial networks, as the value of the data that can be transferred through the increased bandwidth, for example, can be "priced" differently at different points in the network. Our experience, however, is that if SPE is already planned into the migration scenarios for upgrades and conversions, the potential is considerable in some cases.

There has been a wrangling over the decision on a plug standard for several years now. Will there be several variants or will the industry agree on one standard?

The industry will have to agree on one type of connector for each application. One of the fundamental added values of Ethernet - and therefore also of single-pair Ethernet - is consistency and compatibility. If different connectors split up the ecosystem, one of the main reasons for a technology change will be reduced to absurdity. It is expected that the major industry organizations will agree on common specifications for the various use cases and that we will see significant progress in this regard within the next year.

Where are the SPE-capable end devices? When do you expect to see an adequate offering?

When introducing new network standards, there is very often the 'chicken and egg' problem: as there are no network devices - switches, routers - on the market, no end devices are developed. And because there are no end devices, nobody develops switches and routers. At some point, this stalemate will be resolved by manufacturers recognizing the value and size of the available market and taking the first step. With SPE, this stalemate has now been broken by the network manufacturers and the first switches are now available, including those from Belden. The first end devices are also available or are about to be launched.

In your opinion, how far has the work on OPC UA FX progressed - and what role could SPE play in this?

The OPC Foundation published the OPC UA FX Controller-to-Controller (C2C) release at the SPS last year. Work is currently underway on the associated conformance program, among other things. Incidentally, the network level of the C2C release is largely based on the work of IEC/IEEE 60802, the 'TSN Profile for Industrial Automation'. However, don't let the title of this IEC/IEEE standard fool you. In addition to TSN, other new technologies are also included in the profile. These include SPE in the form of 10BASE-T1L. This connection may not be so exciting for controller-to-controller communication in most cases. However, this looks quite different in the context of the controller-to-device (C2D) release, which is also currently under development. This is where the potential for truly end-to-end sensor-to-cloud communication based on OPC UA arises, namely with SPE.

What role does SPE play at your stand?

SPE is a very central topic at the Belden stand. We will be showing a networked Belden solution in which various components work together and offer significant added value for the customer. For example, we will show our Zero-Trust cyber security solution Macmon and how it can protect an industrial network up to field level with SPE against unauthorized intrusion without hindering the function of the automation network. As part of this solution, we will also show how the transition between IO-Link and SPE can be achieved quickly and securely.

Beldn at the SPS 2023: Hall 10, Stand 120