First industrial drive control SoC to support digital and analog position sensors

Announced as the industry’s first on-chip solution supporting both analog and digital position sensors, the TMS320F28379D and TMS320F28379S microcontrollers (MCUs) have been introduced by Texas instruments The newcomers are an expansion to TI’s established C2000 Delfino MCU portfolio and, when combined with DesignDRIVE Position Manager technology, enable simple interfacing to position sensors. This solution improves system performance by completing the decode tasks on-chip and reducing the communication latency, enabling faster control loop performance. In addition, it allows developers to decrease system cost by reducing the board area required in FPGA or ASIC-based solutions. Position Manager gives developers access to the base functionality needed to interface to EnDat2.2, BiSS-C, Resolver and SIN/COS sensors, saving time in development, support and testing. Based on the real-time control architecture of TI’s C2000 MCUs, the DesignDRIVE platform is ideal for the development of industrial inverter and servo drives used in robotics, computer numerical control machinery (CNC), elevators, materials conveyance, transportation and other industrial manufacturing applications. Eliminate a complex stage of the industrial drives development cycle - DesignDRIVE is a single hardware and software platform that makes it easy for engineers to develop and evaluate solutions for a variety of industrial drive and servo topologies. Position Manager, a new technology within DesignDRIVE, allows developers to interface easily with digital and analog position sensors. The TMS320F28379D and TMS320F28379S MCUs are the first MCUs within the C2000 portfolio to support the Position Manager technology on-chip. As a key part of DesignDRIVE solutions, Position Manager allows industrial drives system designers to eliminate the engineering effort needed to develop, support and maintain the FGPAs or ASICs required to connect to these sensors today. Solving position sensor interface compatibility challenges - TI’s Position Manager technology is compatible with both digital and analog position sensors, which allows a single C2000 Delfino MCU the flexibility to support multiple sensor types. This includes EnDat 2.2, BiSS-C, Resolver, SIN/COS and incremental encoders including Clockwise/Counterclockwise protocols (CW/CCW). Texas Instruments is the only semiconductor vendor that supports both digital and analog position sensors for industrial applications. TI worked with HEIDENHAIN, a leading developer of position sensors, to test this on-chip solution to ensure compatibility. “We approve of Texas Instruments’ successful implementation and testing of Position Manager to our EnDat specifications,” said Herbert Reiter, HEIDENHAIN’s Senior Product Manager “and we look forward to working with TI as they enable new EnDat capabilities for our customers.” The C2000 DesignDRIVE development kit offers an easy path to begin exploring a wide variety of motor drive topologies, as well as easy expansion to develop with real-time Ethernet communications and functional safety topologies, enabling more comprehensive, integrated system solutions. DesignDRIVE is supported by TI’s C2000 controlSUITE package and includes specific examples of vector control of motors, incorporating current, speed and position loops, to help developers jumpstart their evaluation and development. In addition, users can download TI’s Code Composer Studio™ integrated development environment (IDE), providing code generation and debugging capabilities. For model-based simulation and software development, TI’s C2000 F28379D and F28379S MCUs are fully compatible with F28377D and F28377S, which are now supported by Mathworks’ Simulink and Embedded Coder. Users can download reference interface and power supply designs for motor drives to either use immediately or modify to their specific needs. In addition to using C2000 MCUs and DesignDRIVE technology, developers can integrate TI’s new ISO5852S family of reinforced isolated gate drivers when developing industrial drive power stages. This family delivers the industry’s highest working voltages of up to 1.5kVrms, the industry’s highest common mode transient immunity (CMTI) of 100 kV/µs minimum, and precision timing to efficiently drive high-voltage and fast switching insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) and silicon carbide (SiC) power switches, says the company.