What does multi-channel communication refer to?
Liaison communication processors can be configured with a variety of port configurations; multiple serial ports, multiple Ethernet ports, multiple specialty interfaces like Profibus and/or DeviceNet. Each generalized port (Ethernet, serial) can be independently assigned a communication protocol. For example, if you had 6 serial ports available, each serial port could be assigned to use a different driver or multiple modules of the same driver (Modbus for example). You could conceivably use a single communication processor to exchange data between a Modbus port, an AB DF1 port, a GE SNP port, etc… With the use of an appropriate Ethernet switch, a single Ethernet port could run multiple Ethernet protocols, such as Modicon TCP/IP, AB CSP (PLC5e) Ethernet and Ethernet IP (Controllogix). Any Liaison communication processor can be configured with any type and number of network modules for which physical ports are available on the device.
