Description:

The 200-CICN​ and 200-CIE​ are communication interface modules manufactured by ABB for the Advant Controller and Series 200 I/O family, covering the two network worlds that a legacy ABB rack typically has to serve at the same time. The 200-CICN​ is a ControlNet interface unit — a deterministic fieldbus scanner that connects the central controller to distributed Series 200 I/O over coaxial ControlNet at 5 Mbit/s. The 200-CIE​ is its Ethernet counterpart, providing a single IEEE 802.3 channel that handles the communication logic required to put the controller onto a plant Ethernet network.

Both modules are plug-in units that occupy a standard slot on an ABB controller backplane and draw their power from the system supply rather than from a separate source. The 200-CICN​ presents a 75 Ω BNC connector at the front and uses CTDMA (Concurrent Time Division Multiple Access) for collision-free, time-deterministic data exchange, making it the right choice when the I/O must be scanned on a predictable cycle. The 200-CIE​ presents a 15-pin D-type AUI connection to an external Ethernet transceiver, sets its network address with four rotary switches, and keeps its buffer memory alive through a back-up battery. Together they let an Advant-era controller do both jobs — hard real-time I/O scanning and open Ethernet data exchange — without replacing the controller itself.

Application Scenarios:

A specialty chemicals plant runs its batch reactors on an ABB Advant controller with Series 200 I/O, an architecture that has been controlling the process reliably for two decades. The plant’s problem is not the controller — it is connectivity. Two separate demands have converged on the same rack. On the process side, newly added skids sit 150 metres away, and pulling every field cable back to the controller cabinet is prohibitively expensive; the plant needs remote I/O drops scanned on a deterministic cycle, with no jitter that could disturb a temperature-controlled reaction. On the information side, corporate has rolled out a plant-wide historian and expects one-second data resolution from every reactor, but the controller has no native Ethernet path.

Installing the 200-CICN​ and 200-CIE​ side by side in the same controller rack solves both problems without touching the control logic. The 200-CICN​ becomes the I/O scanner for the remote drops: each drop is built on a 200-ACN remote I/O adapter with its own local 24 V supply, connected back over coaxial ControlNet, and up to 31 such adapters can hang off a single 200-CICN. Because ControlNet uses CTDMA rather than contention-based access, the scan time stays predictable regardless of how much traffic is on the link — which is exactly what a temperature control loop needs. At the same time, the 200-CIE​ carries the historian traffic, mapping internal process variables onto Modbus TCP tags that the historian polls over the corporate Ethernet network. Critically, the polling load stays off the ControlNet segment, so the information system can be as chatty as it likes without ever perturbing the deterministic I/O scan.

This two-interface pattern is characteristic of ABB’s installed base and shows up wherever mature control hardware has to serve a modern data architecture. In water and wastewater plants the 200-CICN​ scans remote I/O across a large site while the 200-CIE​ feeds SCADA telemetry. In pulp and paper mills it links drive and stock-preparation I/O while carrying production data to the mill information system. In metals and mining, remote drops on a ControlNet trunk serve equipment spread along a conveyor line. In every case the 200-CICN​ and 200-CIE​ address the same underlying pain point: the plant cannot justify a controller migration, but it can no longer tolerate a control system that cannot talk to the network.

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