Toshiba America Electronic Components Inc. (TAEC) has announced the TMPM370, a 32-bit microcontroller (MCU) designed for use in high-efficiency AC motor applications such as washing machines, refrigerators and air conditioners. The device combines an 80MHz ARM Cortex-M3 processing core with a hardware vector engine, providing enough computation capability to drive two independent motors. The TMPM370 is the first ARM Cortex-M3 processor-based MCU to include a hardware vector engine. The TMPM370 MCU is also the first of Toshiba's 5V family of ARM Cortex-M3 processor-based MCUs for industrial and home appliance control, offering good noise immunity and simple interfacing to 5V logic.
Motor control is a demanding real-time application. The algorithms that determine motor movements are computationally intensive, and a motor's real-time control and computation requirements can conflict with each other. The TMPM370 MCU cuts the CPU load in half by offloading most of the heavy calculation to the vector engine, which also handles many of the timing tasks, such as collecting samples from ADCs and directing inputs to the PWM circuits. The end result is that TMPM370 has enough compute power and real-time control capacity to handle two motors simultaneously.
TMPM370 also includes on-chip 256kB FLASH, 10kB SRAM, dual 12-bit analog-to-digital converters, four serial interface controllers, eight 16-bit timers, 76GPIOs, voltage regulator, power-on reset, low voltage detection and oscillator frequency detection, making it a complete one-chip solution for motor control.
TMPM370 complies with IEC60730 Class B requirements for appliance safety. Power-on tests and continuously-operating fault condition checks are handled by a combination of on-chip hardware blocks and a software library.
Toshiba's TMPM370 MCU
Toshiba America Electronic Components
RELATED ARTICLES
Toshiba MOSFETs Come in Compact 3.3x3.3mm TSON Package
NEC Electronics, Toshiba Extend Chip Technology Development Agreements with IBM
Strategies for Recovery
Toshiba and Fujitsu Conclude Definitive Agreement on HDD Business Transfer
