Performance SoftSERCANS is designed to support a maximum of 40 axes and a minimum SERCOS cycle time of 500 µs. A lab test shows that SoftSERCANS can support 8 axes with a typical telegram configuration for machine tool with a cycle time of 1 ms, when a 200 MHz Pentium and 4 Mbps data transfer rate are used, while consuming less than 10% of the CPU's resources. Because SoftSERCANS is software only, its performance improves as hardware performance improves. It checks and dynamically adapts to the performance of the processor during installation. Utilizing the SERCON816 ASIC and increasing the speed of the processor will further expand performance and the number of axes supported for a given cycle time. SoftSERCANS will open the door to a full scope of motion control applications for Realtime Windows. Determinism of the system is assured by the mechanism of SERCOS, which is independent of the data transfer speed and ensures sub-microsecond synchronization accuracy of all axes in the system. Field experience The SoftSERCANS function structure is a software representation of the hardware version of SERCANS, which is an active SERCOS I and II master card introduced in 1996. More than 70 companies worldwide have proven the functions of the SERCANS card in the field. The original SERCANS offers a DPR address where the controller reads and writes data within a predetermined time frame initiated by an interrupt signal. SoftSERCANS offers a larger comfort factor by employing a DLL. The first pilot applications employing SoftSERCANS have been operating in the production environment since January 2000.