An electronic survey of Control Design readers was conducted in June 2013 in order to identify usage and application trends of I/O and terminal blocks among the industrial machine builders that comprise Control Design's readership.
In terms of signal requirements, a mix of analog and digital I/O was prevalent with a growing bias toward digital. 62% reported mostly digital with some analog, with 22% reporting a mix of both. 8% reported using digital I/O only, and 7% indicated mostly analog with some digital . Only 1% reported an exclusive reliance on analog I/O.