Introduction to PROFINET Quick Start Guide

This document describes how to run port GmbH’s PROFINET protocol stack. It lists the stack's features, projects and describes step by step how to download the software to a target. In the last chapter is a simple PLC setup for data mirror provided.

It is possible either to run port’s PROFINET protocol stack in a standalone or a dual-core variant. In both cases, the cores feature the Generic Open Abstraction Layer (GOAL), which handles the hardware functionality e.g. tasks and timer.

The industrial network protocol runs on the so named communication core (CC). It's tasks is to extract input data from network frames for processing by the application and transmit output data from the application into the network.

In dual-core projects, the user application is executed on a peer application core (AC). The communication of AC and CC is done by GOAL via Remote Procedure Call (RPC) or Micro Core to Core (MCTC) automatically.

In the standalone variant, the user application is running on the communication core.

A description of the PROFINET stack is placed in PROFINET - IO Device User Manual. The API equals for single and dual core projects.