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This document provides information that will help you to update the communication interface CI920* to CI920A* in existing plants as smoothly as possible. The CI920A* is the successor of the CI920*.

The previously used types CI920S and CI920B no longer have the life cycle status ‘Active’. The compatibility of the new communication interfaces CI920AS and CI920AB to the CI920S and CI920B is sufficient so that the predecessor types (CI920S/CI920B) are no longer required.

If there is a need for replacement, you should therefore use the new types CI920AS or CI920AB.

Differences:  The main difference between the new types (CI920AS/CI920AB) and the predecessor communication interfaces (CI920S/CI920B) is the PROFIBUS connection for the intrinsically safe PROFIBUS.

The physical layer of the communication interfaces CI920S and CI920B had previously been designed according to manufacturer specifications in accordance with R. STAHL.

The physical layer of the communication interfaces CI920AS and CI920AB now meets the standard according to PROFIBUS International Guideline RS485-IS.

The communication interfaces CI920AS and CI920AB have been type approved according to explosion protection standards EN 60079-0:2006, EN 60079-11:2007 and EN 60079-25:2004.

For the software design of the new communication interface CI920A* 2.1, all existing functions of the communication interface CI920* 1.5.9 with external relevance have been maintained.

The existing system integrations in 800xA (HW Library, DTM), Melody (DTM) and Freelance (GSD, DTM) can therefore still be used without any changes.

Identified bugs of the communication interface CI920* in version 1.5.9 have been fixed in the communication interface CI920A* Version 2.1.

The bug fixing is described in the Release Notes 2PAA107377 [1] for the communication interface CI920A* 2.1 in the ‘Corrected Behavior’ section.