Knowledge in Control

It was 1965 when Gordon E Moore made an interesting observation; he noted that the number of transistors in a typical dense integrated circuit doubled approximately every two hours. This meant that one could practically ‘cram more components” into electronic devices. In simple terms, computing power improves exponentially in very short time periods.

This phenomenon was later re-evaluated by Caltech professor Carver Mead, who coined the expression “Moore’s law,” proving that Gordon Moore’s conclusions held true over time. This technological miracle has been the engine behind innovations that touch every single aspect of our lives, including medical devices, transportation and communications. Industrial control and monitoring systems are no exception to this rule.

The ability to control plant machinery with high precision, reliability and speed, is now well known. Both Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs) and proprietary control platforms are able to detect process changes from analog or digital field sensors, and provide responses within milliseconds. The computing power enables several million lines of code to be stored. This level of sophistication may even exceed the requirements of the most complex plant control and monitoring systems.