To keep pace with industry competition, manufacturers are equipping their factory floors with a plethora of IoT sensors to effectively harness the immense power of automation and advanced data. This data contains valuable insights into processes, performance, and potential vulnerabilities, which, if leaked, could lead to production disruptions, losses, and safety hazards. The global manufacturing sector is one of the most targeted industries by cybercriminals, with the average cost of industrial data breaches exceeding $4.7 million in 2023. Thus, the surge in sensor deployment has driven the demand for advanced connectivity, especially to securely and in real-time transmit data to the cloud.
As industrial automation accelerates, network resilience has never been more critical. Manufacturers are leveraging Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) to better achieve efficient and secure connections from sensors to the cloud. From driving data security and optimizing data processing to flexibility and programmability, FPGAs enable manufacturers to meet this rapidly evolving demand.
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Advantages of FPGAs in Factory Floors
With the rising demand for efficient, secure, and adaptable connections from sensors to the cloud, FPGAs emerge as a key tool. FPGAs possess four key capabilities that make them an important solution for sensor-to-cloud connectivity:
01
Inherent Flexibility and Programmability
One of the most significant advantages of FPGAs is their customizable and reprogrammable “cryptographic agility” solution. Due to the uniqueness and high specialization of these devices, almost any type of computational function can be implemented using FPGAs. In manufacturing, this means developers can create engines or co-processors specifically designed to handle the connectivity needs from sensors to the cloud.
Moreover, FPGAs can be reprogrammed or updated after system deployment. For industries like manufacturing, where demands change rapidly but product lifecycles are long, this means developers can update and upgrade existing machinery to support new standards and meet new technical requirements without needing to replace the entire product.
02
Efficient Data Processing
With the increase in sensor-to-cloud connectivity, there is a need to seamlessly and efficiently collect, process more data, and send it to the cloud. FPGAs incorporate parallel processing capabilities that can aggregate sensor and camera data and quickly analyze large volumes of information. In contrast, a CPU can only process one batch of data at a time, while an FPGA can merge and process multiple functions simultaneously.
Parallel processing also allows FPGAs to monitor multiple communication buses at the same time. This enables developers to handle various types of connections, rapidly and securely funnel more data into the pipeline, and transmit across devices. For instance, in the automotive manufacturing sector, FPGAs can combine or multiplex signals from multiple high-resolution cameras located at various positions, which can then be separated again once these signals reach the chip system (SoC).
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Enhanced Security
While the increase in the number of sensors on factory floors provides manufacturers with more data than ever before, it also expands the attack surface, creating more entry points for opportunistic attackers and introducing new vulnerabilities. Consequently, manufacturing has become a prime target for cyberattacks.
FPGA products designed specifically for hardware root of trust (HRoT) and zero trust security can provide enhanced protection for connected devices, safeguarding the organization’s entire attack surface. Furthermore, FPGAs equipped with HRoT and zero trust features can establish unique device identities and verify them before allowing data exchange between sensors and the cloud. This ensures that the core functionality and critical components of the system are always protected.
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Improved Security Measures
The data collected by factory floor sensors is also crucial for improving AI-driven predictive maintenance algorithms, helping manufacturers predict potential failures before they occur. This use case is particularly important for ensuring the safety of human-machine interfaces (HMIs), as any failure could have dire consequences.
By leveraging the low latency and high bandwidth capabilities of FPGAs, manufacturers can quickly analyze vast amounts of sensor data in real-time, identify patterns indicating impending issues in HMIs or other AI-driven systems, and take preventive measures before failures occur.
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Building Connected Factory Floors
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Industry Community
Key Concepts:
■ By leveraging the low latency and high bandwidth capabilities of FPGAs, manufacturers can quickly analyze vast amounts of sensor data in real-time.
■ Understand the four key capabilities of FPGAs that make them an important solution for sensor-to-cloud connectivity.
Consider:
How can manufacturers better utilize FPGAs to achieve efficient and secure connectivity on the factory floor?
END
Industry Community
Key Concepts:
■ By leveraging the low latency and high bandwidth capabilities of FPGAs, manufacturers can quickly analyze vast amounts of sensor data in real-time.
■ Understand the four key capabilities of FPGAs that make them an important solution for sensor-to-cloud connectivity.
Consider:
How can manufacturers better utilize FPGAs to achieve efficient and secure connectivity on the factory floor?