Old and new CiA fellows

The two-day anniversary event on June 1 and 2 demonstrated the strength of the CAN in Automation (CiA) international users’ and manufacturers’ group.

In March 1992, six companies and two individuals established the nonprofit CiA association. Thirteen companies joined CiA in 1992 are still members today: Eckelmann, ESD, G.i.N., Janz Tec, KEB, Kvaser, Moba, Moog, NXP (formerly Philips Semiconductors), Port, Selectron (today a part of Knorr-Bremse), Softing, and Vector. These long-term members were honored on the first evening of the anniversary event. Today, the association counts more than 700 members.

The presentations given during the two-day event reported about the latest developments of the CiA community, especially about CAN XL and CAN FD Light data link layers as well as the CAN SIC XL physical layer. The presentation slides are available for members on request. Many participants took away new ideas for their future CAN product developments. Most important for old and new CiA fellows was the opportunity to exchange experiences and knowledge in personal talks. New members such as Daimler Truck enjoyed meeting suppliers and technology enablers face-to-face. Long-term members such as ifm electronic and Moba appreciated the detailed technical presentations and discussions with business partners, chipmakers, and competitors.
Holger Zeltwanger (CiA Managing Director) and Reiner Zitzmann (CiA Manager) in discussion with Dagmar Schymonski-Dederichs (SIG fire-fighting chair) and Joachim Uffelmann (SIG IOlink chair) both working with ifm Dr. Arthur Mutter (Bosch) in talks with Lars-Berno Fred Fredriksson and Kent Lennartsson (both with Kvaser)
Uwe Koppe (Microcontrol) and Bjønar Wilsrød (Kongsberg) evaluating long cable networks Matthais Muth explaining the possibilities using CAN SIC XL transceivers

The CiA community is well prepared to continue the CAN success story. With more than 700 members and 13 CiA office employees there are sufficient human and financial resources to maintain the 25 000 pages of CiA technical documents and to develop new ones. There are about 40 CiA technical groups developing CiA specifications and CiA technical reports. But most important are the strong and long-lasting relations between many CiA members. During the two-day anniversary event new ones have been established. All participants took away not just some new technical knowledge, but also some personal relations to other CiA members.

The success of the event may lead to the fact that more CiA community meetings will be held prospectiv. The newly elected CiA Business Committee already discussed establishing an annual event with technical presentations in conjunction with the general assembly.