TI unveils new Stellaris ARM Cortex-M microcontroller motor control kit

Texas Instruments Incorporated (www.ti.com) has expanded its motor control solutions portfolio with the addition of DK-LM3S-DRV8312, which is a motor control kit suitable for spinning three-phase brushless motors with a Stellaris Cortex-M3 microcontroller (MCU).

Offering 32-bit Stellaris LM3S818 microcontroller, the new motor control kit also comes with DRV8312 motor driver to spin 6.5A, sub-50V three-phase brushless DC (BLDC) motors in just a few minutes. A low-cost solution, the Stellaris ARM Cortex-M microcontroller motor control kit is ideally suited for high-volume motor control applications, such as low-voltage fans, pumps, blowers, compressors and tools.

The motor control kit includes a Stellaris LM3S818 controlCARD module, which features a pre-programmed firmware required in flash memory to operate the company’s InstaSPIN-BLDC solution, together with other customer-developed applications, when connected into the DRV8312 motor driver base board.

Its controlCard module offers 64 KB flash, 50 MHz performance, eight KB SCRAM and six PWM generators, enabling developers to make complex motion control designs with a small footprint.

The Stellaris motor control kit’s DRV8312 motor driver eliminates the need for expensive external heat sink and deliver up to 6.5A. The fully-protected motor driver is reliable featuring cycle-by-cycle over-current, cross-conduction, over-temperature and under-voltage protection, reducing board space and design complexity while ensuring higher system reliability.

In addition, the kit’s 24V three-phase BLDC motor can continuously operate at up to 3.5A. Its supporting software includes InstaSPIN-BLDC software for reliable and fast motor start-up on any motor and StellarisWare® software with TI’s IQmath Library for fixed to floating point conversion.

TI’s highly integrated pre-driver reduces board space

Texas Instruments Incorporated (www.ti.com) has unveiled the first in a new range of integrated three-phase brushless motor pre-drivers, the DRV8301. This highly integrated pre-driver offer reduced board space by as much as 60 percent than the closest integrated solution. Its ability to drive sub-10-A to 60-A external FETs enables it to provide greater efficiency, current scalability and improved thermal performance in brushless DC (BLDC) as well as in permanent magnet synchronous motor (PMSM) applications, including medical pumps, ventilation pumps, robotics, commercial refrigeration cooling systems, e-bikes, power tools and other high-torque industrial motor control applications.

The DRV8301 also reduces system complexity and bill of materials while optimizing reliability. Aside from offering a three-phase brushless gate driver that is fully protected, it also features two current-sense amplifiers with feedback resistors and integrated input for current measurements, SPI interface for device configuration from the MCU, and a 1.5-A step-down voltage regulator to propel the system microcontroller (MCU), including the C2000(TM) Piccolo(TM).

A three-phase brushless gate driver allows the DRV8301 to adjust dead-time and slew rate to optimize performance. Its two bi-directional current-sense amplifiers includes output offset, adjustable gain and DC calibration circuitry to effectively reduce board space as well as system cost. The DRV8301 improves motor performance by minimizing the DC calibration circuitry’s DC offset and drift over temperature.

With two-thermal cycle-by-cycle over current protection, this new product also reduces design complexity while improving system reliability.

Texas Instruments introduces new AM1810 Sitara ARM MPU

Texas Instruments Incorporated (www.ti.com) is proud to announce the launch of its all-new AM1810 Sitara ARM microprocessor (MPU) – a new single-chip ARM9 solution with an embedded PROFIBUS interface – the most popular fieldbus used for communications among factory automation equipment.

This embedded, low-power tool removes the need for an external ASIC, FPGA or PROFIBUS, which saves development cost and time while enhancing system performance. The AM1810 Sitara ARM MPU offers ample performance to support industrial applications implementation, whether or not these applications require a PROFIBUS. Industrial applications best suited for the AM1810 Sitara ARM MPU include a human machine interface (HMI) or programmable logic controller (PLC).

Texas Instruments also announced that it joined the PROFIBUS International, affirming its commitment to the industrial market by delivering an integrated and certified solution to improve costs and help make development easier for industrial designers.

Compared to other multi-chip solutions on the market, the AM1810 Sitara ARM MPU directly connects the PROFIBUS interface to the RS-485 transceiver, doing away with the need for a FPGA or ASIC.

“In the industrial space, the PROFIBUS standard is synonymous with reliable networking, and with this certification, TI is giving a higher assurance that our product is a quality alternative to existing solutions,” said Ram Sathappan, industrial end equipments manager of Texas Instruments Inc. “We are very excited to be a member of PI and introduce our certified AM1810 Sitara ARM MPU PROFIBUS solution to the industrial market. Our aim is to help our customers reduce BOM costs, PCB space and design time. We are confident that TI’s one chip solution, the AM1810 Sitara ARM MPU with PROFIBUS, will do just that.”

TI introduces programmable ARM9 SOC in Profibus version

Texas Instruments (www.ti.com) is proud to launch a new addition to its industrial-focused, ARM9-based Sitara AM1x system-on-chip (SoC) family with an integrated Profibus interface. Clocked to 375 MHz, the new AM1810 Sitara includes EtherCAT support and comes with a Linux-ready development module.

The AM1810 Sitara is optimally ideal for use in human machine interface (HMI) or programmable logic controller (PLC) applications. The SoC is based upon the Sitara AM1x line of ARMP processors the company announced in April.

The processor is similar to the top-of-the-line AM1808 unit, except for the addition of EtherCAT Master protocol support and Profibus interface.

In conjunction with the release of the AM1810 Sitara, the manufacturer noted that it has joined the Profibus International organization. Profibus is an industrial fieldbus like LONworks and CANopen, touted by TI as “the world’s most popular fieldbus used for communications between factory automation equipment”.

The Profibus DP slave implementation from TI used on the AM1810 Sitara is PI certified via ComDeC – a Profibus Certification Lab by Siemens AG (www.siemens.com).. By incorporating a Profibus interface into the AM1810, directly connecting it to the RS-485 transceiver, the need for an external Profibus device, FPGA, or ASIC is eliminated. This saves development cost and time, as well as improves system performance.

The company said customers can design smaller housings and enclosures with simpler thermal designs because of the low power architecture of the AM1810 SoC. The thermal advantage can further reduce total bill of materials (BOM) to up to 30%.

TI introduces new DRV8412 evaluation kit

Texas Instruments Incorporated (www.ti.com) is pleased to introduce its all-new DRV8412 evaluation kit (DRV8412-C2-KIT) – a new line of scalable evaluation platforms intended for spinning motors. The kit includes all of the software and hardware needed to spin a single stepper motor or two brushed DC motors out of the box. It also speeds up development time for stepper and brushed DC motors running up to 6A continuous/12A peak at 50V. Applications include gate openers, medical pumps, textile manufacturing tools, stage lighting, and consumer or industrial robotics.

Among the kit’s features are out-of-the-box motor control and driver solution, which includes motors, the DRV8412-C2-KIT, a quick-start GUI, full development source code, Code Composer Studio (CCStudio) fitted with development environment (IDE), and a real-time control C2000 Piccolo microcontroller (MCU) controlCARD module. Modular control architecture provides flexibility to choose the suitable level of processing performance for the application. Additional TI MCU options will also be available next year.

The DRV8412 motor with integrated MOSFETs offers up to three times lower Rdson than other solutions, allowing up to 97% efficient operation, and delivers 6A continuous/12A peak current at 50V, eliminating the need for a costly heat sink. The motor driver also incorporates advanced on-chip protection such as under-voltage protection, over-temperature, and cycle-by-cycle over-current, to reduce design board space and complexity and ensure higher system reliability.

C2000 Piccolo MCU can perform communications, debug and control. The 32-bit C2000 MCU incorporates the most advanced CPU capability and control peripherals in an embedded MCU device family. This includes open-tooled reference designs through free controlSUITE software, real-time debug capabilities and access to the most systematic set of motor control software modules.

Easy-to-use GUI and C source code demonstrate current and voltage control of one or two brushed DC motors, as well as index and speed, which include up to 128 microsteps, of a stepper motor.

GAO Embedded unveils low-voltage servo motors driver

GAO Embedded (www.GAOEmbedded.com) is proud to introduce the new low-voltage servo motor driver intended for high-performance DMC systems. Based on the TMS320F2812 DSP from Texas Instruments (www.ti.com), the servo motor driver is part of a fast and reliable servo motor driver solution that comprises three parts: the LVD (driver part), the IB2812 (interface part) and the EVM2812 board (DSP part). The evaluation board connects with one or two DC brush or brushless servo motors, AC asynchronous motors, AC permanent-magnet synchronous stepper motors or servo motors to create a digital servo-motion control system.

The MCK2812 LV (Low Voltage) Servo motor Driver uses a 24V DC to 80V DC power supply that offers a maximum peak value current of 10A and an output power of up to 400W. It offers an on-board 30W rebooting power switch to supply large current safely; on-board precise resistors to carry out a three-phase current sampling and ensure accuracy; and on-board filter to minimize EMI interference based on the FCC-15 standard. The servo motor driver evaluation board also features a special driving chip and a 20A/200V MOSFET tube to protect against over-voltage, over-current, over-heating and under-voltage; an input interface for Hall sensor signal and incremental photoelectric encoder signal; and a feedback interface for current/velocity/position feedback loop. The evaluation board also provides a PWM frequency of up to 40kHz.

Other features of the low-voltage servo motor driver include motor control source code for DC brush and brushless servo motor, AC asynchronous motor and AC permanent magnet servo motor SVPWM and SPWM, a hardware user manual, as well as hardware schematics.