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I would like to thank everyone for their advice. I have since investigated the CAN bus approach but since it is a prototype and I will get it "professionally" designed I am going to go with the microcontroller based approach with a chain of 8 MCP23017 components which gives me 128 I/O's. I have done some quick calculations in regards to how often I need to process the loop and I am within the required timings so I will not miss any critical events. Noise will not be a concern at this stage from other electrical equipment (but my prototype will validate this).
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The MCP23017 devices are I2C, which is fairly slow, so signal integrity requirements will be easier to meet (more so than a >1MHz SPI or shift-register interface).
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I am a lot more comfortable with this approach now that I have somewhat "validated" what I am trying to do and heard about some other options. Once again, thanks for your help... I'll need to find another use for my FPGA for a future project.
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Its important to learn about new technology. Once you understand it, you'll always find applications. As I said earlier, once you have a good "Hammer" all problems look like "Nails". An FPGA is a great hammer!
Cheers,
Dave
Honored Contributor
