ARM Cortex-M4 MCUs for motor control

Toshiba Electronics Europe GmbH offers 12 new motor control MCUs in its M4K group of devices. These are the first products in the new advanced TXZ+ family. Furthermore, it announced that they are starting mass production of a further ten motor control MCUs in their M4M group. All of the new devices are manufactured in a 40nm process and form part of the TXZ4A+ series.

All of these products are based upon an ARM Cortex-M4 core with FPU and MPU, running at speeds up to 160MHz. The devices incorporate an advance-programmable motor driver (A-PMD), 32-bit advanced encoder (A-ENC), an advanced vector engine plus (A-VE+) and a maximum of three channels of high-speed and high-resolution 12-bit ADCs. As a result, these devices are ideal for FOC of up to three AC motors, BLDC motors and varied types of inverter control such as variable frequency drives or servo drives.

The MCUs offer onboard flash memory for code (128kB/256kB) and 32kB for data as well as a further 24kB of general RAM along with a DMAC. A sum of six 32-bit timers are included, which can be operated as 12 16-bit timers if required. The analog section has a 12-bit ADC with up to 22 input channels and three op-amp channels.

Devices in this group include multi-channel UART, SPI and I2C interfaces for general communication, and the M4M group also has a CAN communication interface. Both groups provide self-diagnosis functions for ROM, RAM, ADC and clock, which enable designers to deliver functional safety certification to IEC60730 Class B. All of the new motor control MCUs provide sophisticated functionality while delivering low current consumption and sustaining excellent backwards compatibility with the existing TXZ M4K(2) products.

The products are packaged in various fine pitch surface mount LQFP packages with up to 100 pins, providing footprints as small as 10mm x 10mm.

Comprehensive documentation, software samples with examples of actual usage, driver software and evaluation boards with control interfaces for each peripheral are offered with each device shipped. Also, a development environment is provided to assist the design and development process in cooperation with global ecosystem partners.