The iPAC-8000 is a new family of compact, modular, intelligent and rugged, distributed I/O (input/output) systems, designed for data acquisition and control in manufacturing, research and education.

This new exciting series offers a flexible, versatile, and economical solution to a wide range of applications. From Data-Acquisition, process control, test and measurement, to energy and building management.
The iPAC-8000 is a modular network based system with the capability of connecting I/O either through it's own local bus or alternatively through I/O expansion or network extension.
The unit comprises a main control unit with a range of standard communication interfaces, and an I/O bus permitting I/O expansion. The bus is hybrid in nature providing the facility to connect either serial or parallel I/O modules. The parallel bus is used for high speed data transfer.
The unit can communicate either using serial communications (RS232,RS485), Ethernet, or CANbus.
The Ethernet version of the product supports an integrated web server permitting Internet and Intranet applications.
The iPAC-8000 can be used as an intelligent distributed data acquisition front end connected to a Host machine running a standard SCADA package, or alternatively it can be user programmed as an autonomous controller running an embedded software application. Significant non volatile memory is available for data and program storage.

The product is made up of four basic components:

• Main Control Unit (MCU):
  The MCU is the power house of the iPAC-8000. Each MCU comprises a central processor module (CPM), a power supply, a four(4) or eight(8) slot backplane for either 4 or 8 Parallel I/O modules. The CPM is powerful integrated processing engine comprising a CPU, RAM and ROM, and an option of communication interfaces including RS-485, Ethernet and CANbus.
• Embedded OS:
  All iPAC-8000 is equipped MiniOS7 embedded OS. It is developed by ICP DAS Co., ltd and compatible to DOS. MiniOS7 has more features than regular DOS in embedded applications, such as shorter boot time, built-in hardware diagnostic function, directly support I-8000 and I-7000 modules without library, and directly support Micro SD and Flash disk.
• I/O Modules:
  There are two types of I/O communication bus, parallel bus and serial bus. The parallel bus type I/O modules (high profile I-8K series) are high speed ones.
• Remote I/O Expansion:
  The iPAC-8000 uses built-in RS-485 and Ethernet ports to connect RS-485/Ethernet remote I/O units (Ru-87Pn/ET-87Pn) or modules (I-7000/M-7000/ET-7000). In this configuration, iPAC-8000 expands the I/O very easily. Using CAN communication module, iPAC-8000 can connect CAN bus devices, remote I/O units for deterministic control system.

2009, the year of PACs!