ARCNET is a bus system enabling powerful and reasonable priced fieldbus solutions. ARCNET plays out its strengths in linking intelligent units as e.g. the PLCs to surveillance installations. It ensures short and predictable response times even when handling larger data volumes due to bus allocation by means of Token Passing. Last but not least its simple user interfaces allows for straightforward and cheap implementations making ARCNET the bus of choice for various applications.

Advantages of ARCNET:

Deterministic
through Token Passing
Double checked
by hash sums and handshaking
Cheap
the protokoll being implemented in one chip
Easily programmable
via a user interface
Variable network architectures
Bus, tree and star topologies as well as mixed forms are possible
Various transmission media
Coaxial, twisted pair and fiber transmission paths can be interconnected
Large net extension
allowed for even with standard baud rates
Automatic joining and leaving
of nodes without user interference
Variable package sizes
ranging from 1 to 507 payload bytes
Variable data rates
from 30 bps to 10Mbps
Master master access
High efficiency

 

Comparison of ARCNET and Ethernet: