Motor control MPU enables fast precision control of servo motors

Renesas’ highest-performance RZ/T2M motor control MPUs for applications including AC servo drives and industrial robots. The MPU combines fast and highly precise real-time motor control capabilities and the latest industrial Ethernet on a single chip while supporting functional safety operation. By supplying all essential peripheral functions for motor control, the device allows customers to lower the number of external components, thereby reducing BOM costs and product size.

“There is growing demand for factory automation and the deployment of industrial robots to boost productivity,” said Toshihide Tsuboi, vice president of Industrial Automation Business Division at Renesas. “The RZ/T2M is capable of controlling the servo motors that drive robots at extremely high speed and with high precision. I anticipate that it will contribute to the development and widespread adoption of sophisticated industrial robots that can work safely alongside humans.”

The MPU is constructed around two Arm Cortex-R52 cores with a maximum operating frequency of 800MHz. Connecting the peripheral functions used for motor control to a dedicated bus linked directly to the CPU allows the CPU to access these functions with low latency. Also, the large memory capacity (576KB) is tightly coupled with the CPU, lowering the fluctuation in execution time that may occur when cache memory is utilised and providing deterministic, fast-response processing. These advantages allow the device to offer rapid and highly precise control for applications that demand high performance, such as AC servos, inverters, and industrial robots.

Also to major industrial networking protocols such as EtherCAT, PROFINET RT, and EtherNet/IP, the company has added support for the PROFINET IRT protocol in the RZ/T2M. The new MPU also incorporates an Ethernet switch that supports the next-generation TSN standard, enabling multiple devices to operate in precise synchronisation.

“Functional safety continues to be an important requirement for many of our customers,” said Anders Holmberg, CTO at IAR Systems. “Companies choosing the new Renesas’ RZ/T2M in their next design can be sure that IAR Systems will support them with certified development tools and professional technical support globally, substantially reducing both design time and project cost.”