Motor control circuitry targets automotive MCUs

Article By : Graham Prophet

Renesas' Intelligent Motor Timer System performs field-oriented-control operations in 0.8µsec, which it claims as the fastest available.

Renesas Electronics has developed an Intelligent Motor Timer System (IMTS), a dedicated circuit block that can be integrated into automotive microcontrollers (MCUs) for next-generation electric vehicles (EVs) and hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs).

Renesas says it will equip automotive microcontrollers with this dedicated motor control circuitry; objectives include boosting the energy efficiency of next-generation electric vehicles. Compared to a software implementation, the circuit block will reduce operation time to 10% or less while providing functional safety.

__Figure 1:__ *Conventional MCU layout*

The IMTS performs field-oriented-control operations in 0.8µsec, which Renesas claimed as the fastest available. This contributes to the realisation of next-generation high-speed EV motors with energy efficiency and inverter systems with high-speed switching performance to drive them. The circuit also enables functional safety support required for the automotive powertrain field.

With the increasingly stricter fuel efficiency requirements in the recent years, EVs, HEVs and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) have come to account for an increasing share of the total number of vehicles produced. To increase the range of such motor-driven vehicles, it is necessary to boost the energy efficiency of motor control.

Renesas implemented the IMTS as a dedicated circuit block for static processes requiring a high level of responsiveness such as acquisition of sensor data, calculation of control values based on it and outputting of these values. The IMTS is independent of the CPU and capable of running autonomously, so it reduces the CPU load of the motor control MCU. The resulting surplus CPU capacity can then be allocated to advanced motor control algorithms designed to boost the energy efficiency of next-generation EVs, HEVs, and PHEVs.

 
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