Siemens' 2025 series of new PLCs is reshaping the competitive landscape in industrial automation control through hardware upgrades, functional enhancements, and a localization strategy.
In 2025, Siemens launched several new and upgraded PLCs, including the S7-1200G2, S7-200 SMART V3.0, and S7-1500 series.
These upgrades not only enhance processing performance, storage capacity, and motion control capabilities, but also strengthen communication functions and security, aiming to meet the growing demand for high-end control equipment in Industry 4.0 and smart manufacturing.
01 Hardware Upgrade: Significant Performance Improvement
Siemens' new generation of PLC products features significant hardware design improvements. The S7-1200G2 series adopts a completely new hardware design, reducing track length by approximately 25%, significantly increasing storage area, and introducing new removable terminals.
The retentive memory area of the S7-200 SMART V3.0 has been increased from 12KB to 40KB, and the user program size has also been significantly increased: the SR/ST 40 has increased from 24KB to 80KB, and the SR/ST 60 has increased from 30KB to 100KB.
In terms of connectivity, the S7-1200G2 integrates two RJ45 ports (one PN port), supports PROFINET IRT, and supports up to 31 devices. It also adds NFC functionality, enabling CPU diagnostics via mobile phone.
2 Enhanced Motion Control Capabilities
Motion control capabilities are a key focus of this upgrade. The S7-1200G2's motion control capabilities have been significantly enhanced, supporting synchronization, camming, interpolation, and multiple technology objects (TOs).
S7-200 SMART V3.0 supports up to 16 controlled axes, including up to five PTO axes, two encoder axes, and 16 virtual axes. It also adds cam and gear functions.
The new generation of high-performance PLCs, the S7-1200 G2++ logic controller, supports up to 32 synchronized axes. Combined with the highly dynamic S200C +1FL1 servo drive system, featuring a 62.5 microsecond current loop cycle and a 250 microsecond IRT communication cycle, it can improve equipment operating speed and accuracy by 10% and 15%, respectively.
03 Communication and Security Improvements
In the communications sector, Siemens has obtained a patent titled "Abstract PLC Communication," which aims to achieve a higher level of abstraction for PLC communication methods, improving their adaptability and performance in complex industrial control environments.
Security features have also been enhanced. S7-200 SMART V3.0 enhances encryption protection, including PLC password management, guest management, and login capabilities.
In the communication settings, secure communication with the HMI is enabled by default, and PUT/GET services are disabled by default, further improving system security.
04 Programming and Software Development Enhancements
In terms of programming functionality, S7-200 SMART V3.0 adds DB2 data areas, UDT and array data types, and supports function blocks 35.
TIA Portal V20 software also introduces new features, including LAD/F-LAD export, which supports exporting code and comments in text format, facilitating program import and export, printing and archiving, and interoperability with external tools such as Git repositories.
Improvements to the named value data type enable named value display in monitoring and trace tracking. The SCL text view interface now supports named value data types, and fail-safe blocks also support named value data types.
05 Localization Strategy and Industry Applications
Siemens places particular emphasis on the Chinese market. In March 2025, it announced its "China Accelerator 2.0" strategy, launching 18 new products for the Chinese market, 16 of which were fully domestically developed.
These new products cover industrial automation and digitalization products and services, including PLCs, frequency converters, servo drive systems, and virtual commissioning software, aiming to help China's manufacturing industry achieve high-value transformation.
In terms of industry applications, Siemens has launched the ET 200clean distributed I/O specifically for the food and pharmaceutical industries. It boasts an IP69K protection rating, hygienic design, S2 redundancy, and multi-bus communication support.
06 Impact on the Industry
Siemens PLC product upgrades have had a profound impact on the industrial automation industry. Their innovative features and technological advancements are forcing competitors to accelerate technological innovation and product upgrades to keep pace with market changes.
With the growing adoption of Industry 4.0 and smart manufacturing concepts, more and more companies are prioritizing automated and intelligent solutions. Siemens' PLC upgrades demonstrate its cutting-edge automation technology and will provide strong support for industrial automation, improving user productivity and operational convenience.
Particularly in the field of motion control, the enhanced performance of Siemens PLCs enables higher precision in precision control applications such as shearing. In web processing equipment (such as film slitters and steel plate shears), the control system can achieve shearing accuracy within ±1mm, meeting the requirements of most web processing applications.
This upgrade to Siemens' PLC product line not only enhances hardware performance but also brings comprehensive improvements in motion control, communication security, and programming development.
With the deepening of the concept of Industry 4.0, Siemens' localization strategy ("China Accelerator 2.0") and intelligent design are helping companies reduce design errors and improve product development efficiency, potentially saving approximately 30% in R&D time and costs.
The intelligent transformation of future manufacturing is quietly accelerating, and the innovation of Siemens PLC technology is just a small part of this wave of industrial transformation.
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