New Industry Products

AEC-Q100 MCUs with Integrated Communications Interface Enhance System Flexibility

June 19, 2019 by Scott McMahan

Texas Instruments (TI) introduced new communications capabilities on its C2000™ MCUs. C2000 F2838x 32-bit MCUs enable the use a single chip to implement connectivity including EtherCAT, Ethernet and Controller Area Network with Flexible Data Rate (CAN FD), in ac servo drives, and other industrial systems. According to TI, the enhanced connectivity and increased control performance of the new C2000 microcontrollers enables system-level flexibility.

Applications for the MCUs include advanced driver assistance systems, building automation, EV/HEV, powertrain, factory automation, grid infrastructure, industrial transport, medical, healthcare, and fitness, motor drives, power delivery, telecom infrastructure, and test and measurement.

The company points out that systems with communication interfaces frequently require an external ASIC or dedicated host control microprocessor, which limits the flexibility of the design architecture, adds complexity, and takes up space on the board.

However, the new C2000 F2838x MCUs do not require an external ASIC, thereby reducing overall solution size and bill of materials.

By integrating three industrial communication protocols, the F2838x MCUs offer the ability to tailor one MCU to the unique needs of each system. A fundamental component in achieving this is a new connectivity manager, an Arm® Cortex®-M4-based subsystem, which offloads processing-intensive communications and optimizes connectivity.

In addition to these capabilities, C2000 F2838x MCUs offer enhanced real-time control performance and increased flexibility compared to previous C2000 series MCUs.

Key features and benefits of the C2000 F2838x series

  1. The series integrates EtherCAT, Ethernet and CAN FD

For electrically isolated architectures, a fast serial interface with eight receiving channels facilitates chip-to-chip communication at up to 200Mbps using minimal pins. It is possible to build on this high level of integration in CAN FD designs and quickly increase the number of available CAN FD ports by pairing the F2838x with a TI system basis chip (SBC), such as the TCAN4550 SBC with integrated CAN FD controller and transceiver.

  1. Maximizes real-time control performance

With a 64-bit floating-point unit and fast integer division hardware, the C28x central processing unit-based control allows for differentiated capability and high-precision designs. For servo drive applications, the fast current-loop technology processes field-oriented control in under 500ns to enable more precise position control.

  1. Flexible integration of sensing facilitates real-time control

An integrated single-ended 16-bit analog-to-digital converter doubles the number of available channels compared to previous C2000 MCUs to minimize external components, minimize system latency, and maximize control-loop accuracy. The MCU's expanded configurable logic block enables customization of peripherals and removes or reduces the need for a field-programmable gate array.

Features

  • Dual-core C28x architecture
    • Two TMS320C28x 32-bit CPUs
      • 200MHz
      • IEEE 754 double-precision (64-bit) FloatingPoint Unit (FPU)
      • Trigonometric Math Unit (TMU)
      • CRC engine and instructions (VCRC)
      • Fast Integer Division (FINTDIV)
    • 512KB (256KW) of flash on each CPU (ECC-protected)
    • 44KB (22KW) of local RAM on each CPU
    • 128KB (64KW) of global RAM shared between the two CPUs (parity-protected)
  • Two Control Law Accelerators (CLAs)
    • 200MHz
    • IEEE 754 single-precision floating-point
    • Executes code independently of C28x CPU
  • System peripherals
    • Two External Memory Interfaces (EMIFs) with
    • ASRAM and SDRAM support
    • Two 6-channel Direct Memory Access (DMA) controllers
    • Up to 169 General-Purpose Input/Output (GPIO) pins with input filtering
    • Expanded Peripheral Interrupt controller (ePIE)
    • Low-power mode (LPM) support
    • Dual-zone security for third-party development
    • Unique Identification (UID) number
    • Embedded Real-time Analysis and Diagnostic (ERAD)
    • Background CRC (BGCRC)
  • Connectivity Manager (CM)
    • Arm® Cortex®
    • M4 processor 125MHz
    • 512KB of flash (ECC-protected)
    • 96KB of RAM (ECC-protected or parityprotected)
    • Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) accelerator
    • Generic CRC (GCRC)
    • 32-channel Micro Direct Memory Access (µDMA) controller
    • Universal Asynchronous Receiver/Transmitter (CM-UART)
    • Inter-integrated Circuit (CM-I2C)
    • Synchronous Serial Interface (SSI)
    • 10/100 Ethernet 1588 MII/RMII
    • MCAN (CAN-FD)
  • C28x communications peripherals
    • Fast Serial Interface (FSI) with two transmitters and eight receivers
    • Four high-speed (up to 50MHz) SPI ports (pinbootable)
    • Four Serial Communications Interfaces
    • (SCI/UART) (pin-bootable)
    • Two I2C interfaces (pin-bootable)
    • Power-Management Bus (PMBus) interface
    • Two Multichannel Buffered Serial Ports (McBSPs)
  • CM-C28x shared communications peripherals
    • EtherCAT® Slave Controller (ESC)
    • USB 2.0 (MAC + PHY)
    • Two Controller Area Network (CAN) modules (pin-bootable)
  • Analog subsystem
    • Four Analog-to-Digital Converters (ADCs)
      • 16-bit mode
        • 1.1 MSPS each
        • 12 differential or 24 single-ended inputs
      • 12-bit mode
        • 3.5 MSPS each
        • 24 single-ended inputs
      • Single sample-and-hold (S/H) on each ADC
      • Hardware post-processing of conversions
    • Eight windowed comparators with 12-bit Digital-to-Analog Converter (DAC) references
    • Three 12-bit buffered DAC outputs
  • Control peripherals
    • 32 Pulse Width Modulator (PWM) channels
      • High resolution on both A and B channels of 8 PWM modules (16 channels)
      • Dead-band support (on both standard and high resolution)
    • Seven Enhanced Capture (eCAP) modules
      • High-resolution Capture (HRCAP) available on two of the seven eCAP modules
    • Three Enhanced Quadrature Encoder Pulse (eQEP) modules
    • Eight Sigma-Delta Filter Module (SDFM) input channels, 2 independent filters per channel
  • Configurable Logic Block (CLB)
    • Augments existing peripheral capability
    • Supports position manager solutions
  • Clock and system control
    • Two internal zero-pin 10MHz oscillators
    • On-chip crystal oscillator
    • Windowed watchdog timer module
    • Missing clock detection circuitry
    • Dual-clock Comparator (DCC)
  • 1.2V core, 3.3V I/O design
  • Package options:
    • Lead-free, green packaging
    • 337-ball New Fine Pitch Ball Grid Array (nFBGA) [ZWT suffix]
  • Temperature options:
    • S: -40ºC to 125ºC junction
    • Q: -40ºC to 125ºC ambient (AEC Q100 qualification for automotive applications)

Package, availability and pricing

Pre-production samples of the C2000 TMS320F28388D are now available through the TI store in a 337 ball-grid-array package. Pricing starts at US$14.00 in 1,000-unit quantities. Developers can start with the C2000 TMDSCNCD28388D development kit, available through the TI store for $249. TI says it will release software development kits for motor control and digital power by the end of June.