What Makes CUBLOC Truly Different?

CUBLOC was released in 2004, a full year before Arduino entered the market. It is a product entirely developed by COMFILE Technology, from the compiler to the firmware. Unlike many platforms that rely on third-party toolchains or operating layers, CUBLOC was designed as a complete, vertically integrated system from the ground up.

A Well-Engineered Firmware at the Core

The greatest strength of CUBLOC lies in its well-designed built-in firmware, often described as an interpreter or even a lightweight RTOS. This firmware is always running in the background, ensuring that your BASIC code and Ladder Logic execute reliably and predictably.

Behind the scenes, the firmware handles many critical system-level tasks required for real-world automation:

• Task scheduling
• True multitasking management
• Resource allocation
• Communication handling (queues, MODBUS processing, etc.)
• Memory management and garbage collection

When using a bare MCU or platforms such as Arduino, developers must implement or manage most of these functions themselves. This increases development complexity and raises the risk of instability, especially in long-running industrial systems.

CUBLOC, on the other hand, comes with firmware that has been refined and maintained for over 20 years. This long-term maintenance is not just a feature—it is a major reliability advantage.

Native Support for Ladder Logic

Another defining advantage of CUBLOC is its native support for Ladder Logic.

Ladder Logic is a cornerstone of industrial automation. Its effectiveness has been proven over decades in the PLC world. Major automation companies such as Allen-Bradley, Siemens, and ABB continue to rely on Ladder Logic as the foundation of their PLC systems.

Ladder Logic represents logic circuits using a graphical language. Each logic rung continuously waits in a ready state, and the moment its input conditions are satisfied, the output is immediately updated. Even if thousands of logic blocks exist, they remain constantly active and responsive.

In this sense, Ladder Logic itself can be seen as a highly effective multitasking engine.

BASIC and Ladder Logic—Running Together

CUBLOC goes a step further by combining Ladder Logic with BASIC.

While Ladder Logic excels at deterministic control and I/O handling, BASIC complements it by enabling:

• Complex arithmetic operations
• Advanced data processing
• Communication logic
• Graphic and UI-related processing

Most importantly, BASIC and Ladder Logic run simultaneously on CUBLOC. They are implemented as true multitasking processes, meaning execution in one does not interfere with the other. This architectural separation ensures stability and predictable behavior—qualities that are essential in automation equipment.

Built for Real Automation Systems

All of these strengths come together to make CUBLOC more than just a controller. It becomes a reliable embedded automation platform that can confidently serve as the core of real-world machines and systems.

If your goal is to build automation equipment that is stable, maintainable, and proven over time, CUBLOC is designed to fulfill that role—not as an experiment, but as a production-ready solution refined over decades.