Automotive-qualified hardware for compact motor control units

Rutronik System Solutions expands its Base and Adapter Boards portfolio with the RDK4. It supports the development of motor control units by integrating a microcontroller, a system base chip, and the most important automotive interfaces, CAN FD and LIN, in a minimum of space. As a result, development departments of automotive OEMs or Tier-1s, for example, do not require to go to the trouble of designing appropriate hardware themselves but can test and implement applications for motor control units directly with the aid of the RDK4. For this purpose, it is integrated into Infineon's ModusToolbox development environment, where software examples are provided. Due to its properties and features, it is ideal for a wide range of applications and helps ensure they are implemented quickly.

Motor control units are used in almost every application and must meet various necessities depending on the application. In the automotive sector, the demands are exceptionally high, and the hardware design is time-consuming. The company offers a compact Base Board containing many relevant components for developing motor control units so that most applications can be tested in detail in the pre-development phase and reach market maturity more quickly.

Infineon's PSoCTM 4100S Max with an Arm Cortex-M0+ automotive microcontroller, which delivers high performance at low power consumption, is at the heart of the Base Board.

"For us, innovation always means creating something unique. We have once again achieved that with the RDK4, using state-of-the-art components such as Infineon's PSoCTM 4100S Max. The RDK4 is currently the only automotive-qualified board that uses this new microcontroller," says Stephan Menze, head of Global Innovation Management at Rutronik.

Another unique feature of the device is that a system base chip is incorporated into the Base Board together with the microcontroller. The built-in OPTIREGTM Mid-Range+ system base chip from Infineon delivers high integration, performance, and scalability. Also, the most important automotive interfaces, CAN FD from Amphenol CS and LIN from KYOCERA AVX, are incorporated into the board. With the help of jumpers, it is also feasible to selectively measure the power consumption of the microcontroller, for example, during different power modes.