A new generation Arcom controller, based on the Intel 188EB embedded processor with PC development tools, has been used by CI Electronics to more than quadruple the speed of its world-beating tablet and capsule weight sorter. In this application, the board upgrades a previous single-board controller which was based on a Z8 and was programmed in assembler. To ensure correct dosage, pharmaceutical companies must manufacture to tight weight tolerances, which is typically verified by sample testing output from tablet presses or from capsule filling machines. CI's weight sorter is used by virtually every major pharmaceutical manufacturer world-wide, to recover good tablets from any batch which fails a sample weight test. It does this by accurately weighing and sorting every single tablet.
Medicines can be expensive to make, so machines typically pay for themselves within weeks.
To meet demands for faster recovery, CI decided to re-design its machine with multiple weigh heads. The PC was discounted on grounds of unnecessary complexity and cost. Another key issue was reliability and longevity. The chips used on embedded PC board designs tend to come and go very rapidly. Having decided on a real-time controller board, the designers were open about the type of CPU, having a choice between Motorola or Intel devices.