The solution provides customers with a ready-to-use, turnkey solution for motor control applications, with no associated development costs. As a result, customers will benefit from reduced time to market and cost reductions with the delivery of a pre-programmed ASSP that eliminates RISC-V related tools and software investment.
Target applications for the new solution include home/building automation, healthcare devices, home appliances, and drones.
Renesas has been working to take a leadership role in delivering RISC-V embedded processing solutions, and recently introduced the 64-bit general-purpose RZ/Five MPUs based on a 64-bit RISC-V CPU, as well as announcing development of RISC-V automotive solutions.
Commenting Roger Wendelken, Senior Vice President in Renesas’ IoT and Infrastructure Business Unit, said, “This RISC-V-based ASSP offers an optimum combination of low cost, quick time-to-market, and outstanding performance. It complements our current portfolio nicely, reaching out to new customers and emerging markets across the globe.”
The R9A02G020 motor control ASSP is based on RISC-V processing IP from Andes Technology. The company’s CEO, Franklin Lin, said, that he was pleased that Andes' entry-level RISC-V processor IP was providing the computing power in Renesas' R9A02G020 MCU ASSP. “We believe Renesas making a powerful, low-power MCU ASSP available to the market will accelerate the incorporation of RISC-V in a broad array of applications. It will also encourage software developers to produce more creative and efficient applications for RISC-V, thus speeding up adoption of this next generation paradigm.”
Renesas will deliver the new RISC-V ASSP pre-programmed with specialised application code developed by leading Independent Design Houses (IDHs) BFG Engineering and DigiPower (HK) Technology. Both have specialised expertise in the motor control field.
BFG has developed sensor-less algorithms that allow customers to reduce motor start-up times, while DigiPower has been creating cost-optimised, scalable motor drive solutions since 2008 and has designed specific solutions for control of refrigerator compressors, fans, pumps and more.
SEGGER Microcontroller has also partnered in this effort and the complete SEGGER ecosystem, including Embedded Studio and J-Link, was a key element used to create and test these motor control solutions.
Key features of the R9A02G020 Motor Control ASSP solution include:
- A cost-optimised 32MHz, 32-bit CPU core based on license-free RISC-V ISA
- Analog IP functionality: ADCs with three dedicated PGA and S/H, two DACs, two comparators, temperature sensor
- Advanced motor control timers, two watchdog timers
- Small 24- and 32-pin QFN packages
- High temperature support, up to Ta +125°C for harsh operating environments
- Sensor-less vector control for one BLDC motor, 1/3 shunt, PFC and Hall sensor inputs
- Flash: 48 KB
- SRAM: 16 KB (4KB with ECC)
- CPU and bus memory protection units
- Pre-programmed and tested motor control software
- Complete reference design: hardware, software, kit, tools, hardware datasheet, software datasheet, GUI manual, app notes
