Triconex
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Triconex is a
Schneider Electric Schneider Electric SE is a French multinational corporation that specializes in digital automation and energy management. Registered as a Societas Europaea, Schneider Electric is a ''Fortune'' Global 500 company, publicly traded on the Euronex ...
brand that supplies products, systems, and services for safety, critical control, and turbo-machinery applications. Triconex also use its name for its hardware devices that use its TriStation application software. Triconex products are based on patented
Triple modular redundancy In computing, triple modular redundancy, sometimes called triple-mode redundancy, (TMR) is a fault-tolerant form of N-modular redundancy, in which three systems perform a process and that result is processed by a majority-voting system to produc ...
(TMR) industrial safety-shutdown technology. Today, Triconex TMR products operate globally in more than 11,500 installations.


Company history

The history of Triconex was published in the book ''The History of a Safer World'' by Gary L. Wilkinson. The company was founded in September 1983 by Jon Wimer in
Santa Ana, California Santa Ana (Spanish language, Spanish for ) is a city in and the county seat of Orange County, California, United States. Located in the Greater Los Angeles region of Southern California, the city's population was 310,227 at the 2020 census. As ...
and began operations in March 1984. The company was founded as a venture-capital funded private company. The business plan was written by Wimer and Peter Pitsker, an automation industry veteran and Stanford graduate. They presented the plan for a TMR (triple modular redundant) system named "Tricon" that would improve the safety and reliability of industrial applications. Among the customers they targeted were the petro-chemical giants, such as
Exxon Exxon Mobil Corporation ( ) is an American multinational oil and gas corporation headquartered in Spring, Texas, a suburb of Houston. Founded as the largest direct successor of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil, the modern company was form ...
,
Shell Shell may refer to: Architecture and design * Shell (structure), a thin structure ** Concrete shell, a thin shell of concrete, usually with no interior columns or exterior buttresses Science Biology * Seashell, a hard outer layer of a marine ani ...
,
Chevron Chevron (often relating to V-shaped patterns) may refer to: Science and technology * Chevron (aerospace), sawtooth patterns on some jet engines * Chevron (anatomy), a bone * '' Eulithis testata'', a moth * Chevron (geology), a fold in rock la ...
, and BP. Pitsker and Wimer presented the business plan to Los Angeles-based investor Chuck Cole, who was also a professor at USC. Cole was interested, so he contacted his personal attorney, future two-time Los Angeles Mayor
Richard Riordan Richard Joseph Riordan (May 1, 1930 – April 19, 2023) was an American businessman, investor, military commander, philanthropist, and politician. A decorated Korean War veteran and a member of the Republican Party, Riordan served as the 39th ...
. Riordan agreed to invest $50,000 and Cole's venture capital team matched it, providing the seed money for Triconex. Wimer hired computer architect Ken Brody out of another computer manufacturer as Vice President of Research and Development and the number 2 employee. Ken Brody hired Wing N. Toy from
Bell Labs Nokia Bell Labs, commonly referred to as ''Bell Labs'', is an American industrial research and development company owned by Finnish technology company Nokia. With headquarters located in Murray Hill, New Jersey, Murray Hill, New Jersey, the compa ...
. After two years, however, the company nearly failed due to the expense and complications of testing a new safety system. In February 1986, founder Wimer left the company and the board asked a seasoned executive, William K. Barkovitz, to become CEO; Barkovitz ended up leading the company for 9 years. At the end of his term, Triconex became the leading safety system in a market it largely created, made acquisitions, and completed an
initial public offering An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investm ...
. In January 1994, Triconex was acquired by British-based SIEBE for 90 million dollars. The hardware architect of the company was Gary Hufton, and the software development manager was Glen Alleman. Along with Wing N. Toy (the lead engineer of the fault-tolerant ESS telephone switch), they led a small successful engineering team that built the first Tricon system, sold in June 1986. Soon after, Exxon became a customer and
Honeywell Honeywell International Inc. is an American publicly traded, multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina. It primarily operates in four areas of business: aerospace, building automation, industrial automa ...
agreed to distribute the Tricon. Among the software engineers who worked for Triconex were Phil Huber and
Dennis Morin Dennis R. Morin (February 25, 1946 – December 31, 2012) was an American technology entrepreneur and programmer, based in Irvine, California. He co-founded the software firm Wonderware. Early life Morin was born in Saco, Maine, a New Engla ...
, who later left the company to found
Wonderware Wonderware was a brand of industrial software now owned by Aveva and rebranded under the AVEVA name. Wonderware was part of Invensys, Invensys plc, and Invensys plc was acquired in January 2014 by Schneider Electric. Invensys, Invensys plc.
.


System

The Triconex system is based on the TMR patented technology that supports up to Safety Integrity Level 3 ( SIL 3) and is usually used as a safety rather than a control system.


Operating theory

Fault tolerance in the Tricon is achieved by means of a Triple-Modular Redundant (TMR) architecture. The Tricon provides error-free, uninterrupted control in the presence of either hard failures of components, or transient faults from internal or external sources. The Tricon is designed with a fully triplicated architecture throughout, from the input modules through the Main Processors to the output modules. Every I/O module houses the circuitry for three independent legs. Each leg on the input modules reads the process data and passes that information to its respective Main Processor. The three Main Processors communicate with each other using a proprietary high-speed bus system called the TriBus. Once per scan, the three Main Processors synchronize and communicate with their two neighbors over the TriBus. The Tricon votes digital input data, compares output data, and sends copies of analog input data to each Main Processor. The Main Processors execute the user written application and send outputs generated by the application to the output modules. In addition to voting the input data, the TriBus votes the output data. This is done on the output modules as close to the field as possible to detect and compensate for any errors between the Tricon voting and the final output driven to the field.


Hardware

The Triconex system usually consists of the following typical modules: * Main Processor modules (triple). * Communication module(s) . * Input and output modules: can be analog and/or digital and work singularly or in hot-spare (standby). * Power supply modules (redundant). * Backplane(s) (chassis) that can hold the previous modules. * System cabinet(s): can compact one or more chassis in one cabinet. * Marshalling cabinets to adapt and standardize interface connections between the field instruments and the Triconex system cabinets. * Human machine interface (HMI) to monitor the events. * Engineering workstation (EWS) for programming. monitoring, troubleshooting, and updating.


Software

The Triconex main processors can communicate with the so-called TriStation 1131 application software to download, update and/or monitor programs. These programs are either written in: *
Function Block Diagram The function block diagram (FBD) is a graphical language for programmable logic controller design, that can describe the function between input variables and output variables. A function is described as a set of elementary blocks. Input and o ...
language, * Ladder diagram language, or *
Structured text Structured text, abbreviated as ST or STX, is one of the five languages supported by the IEC 61131-3 standard, designed for programmable logic controller A programmable logic controller (PLC) or programmable controller is an industrial comp ...
( Pascal like) Language. * Cause and Effect Matrix Programmable Language (CEMPLE). (Function Block Diagram, Ladder diagram and Structured Text are defined in IEC1131-3) Besides, a Sequence of Events (SOE) recorder software and Diagnostic monitor software are implemented.


Triton malware

In December 2017, it was reported that the safety systems of an unidentified power station, believed to be in
Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in West Asia. Located in the centre of the Middle East, it covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula and has a land area of about , making it the List of Asian countries ...
were compromised when the Triconex industrial safety technology made by Schneider Electric SE was targeted in what is believed to have been a state sponsored attack. The computer security company
Symantec Symantec may refer to: * Gen Digital, an American consumer software company formerly known as Symantec * Symantec Security, a brand of enterprise security software purchased by Broadcom Broadcom Inc. is an American multinational corporation, ...
claimed that the
malware Malware (a portmanteau of ''malicious software'')Tahir, R. (2018)A study on malware and malware detection techniques . ''International Journal of Education and Management Engineering'', ''8''(2), 20. is any software intentionally designed to caus ...
, known as "Triton", exploited a vulnerability in computers running the
Microsoft Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...
operating system.


References and notes


Further reading


Triton is the world's most murderous malware, and it's spreading
March 5, 2019
MIT Technology Review ''MIT Technology Review'' is a bimonthly magazine wholly owned by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It was founded in 1899 as ''The Technology Review'', and was re-launched without "''The''" in its name on April 23, 1998, under then pu ...


External links


Triconex Safety Systems, Schneider Electric
{{Invensys Control engineering