At Embedded World 2007, Infineon Technologies demonstrated microcontroller products and software development support tools that will help drive advancements in embedded industrial and automotive motor control applications.
Among its highlights were new MCUs featuring temperatures of +140°C, field oriented control (FOC) capability now demonstrated on the company's 8-bit MCUs, and the new 'DAvE Drive' software configuration tool kit, which is part of a complete development environment for industrial and automotive motor control applications consisting of microcontroller hardware, software, power semiconductors and motor drive.
Field oriented control using 8-bit micros
Infineon is the first microcontroller supplier to offer standard 8-bit MCUs capable of supporting field oriented control (FOC), a technique for operating electric motors for smooth and efficient operation at all speeds. Implemented on its 8-bit XC886 and XC888 families, FOC motor control solutions are attractive for price-sensitive appliance applications, such as washing machines and dish washers.
Field oriented control is increasingly being used in appliances because it results in higher efficiency by running the motor at optimum torque at all times; better dynamic response to enable very precise variable speed control (contingent on each stage of a washing program's cycle); and lower torque ripple to provide even and steady motor rotation at speed and also during start and stop operation.
Typically, a 16- or 32-bit MCU or DSP is required to handle the complex trigonometric equations. Compared to these solutions, Infineon says its 8-bit XC886/8 families offer the full benefits of FOC at about 50% of the overall electronic BOM cost. The computing performance of XC886 is boosted by a 16-bit vector computer performing rotation and scaling operations. This combined with the 'CapCom6E' PWM unit and a fast 8-channel 10-bit AD converter addresses the implementation challenges of FOC on an 8051-compliant MCU.
Compared to existing solutions, in which FOC execution engages the whole CPU load, FOC execution on the XC886 and XC888 microcontrollers only requires 58% of the CPU's capability, providing ample headroom for applications such as system control and communication, for example with the display microcontroller. Unlike hard-coded FOC implementations, there is the additional benefit of software re-programmability. This adds flexibility for the application.
Easier generation of application code for motor drives
DAvE (digital application virtual engineer) Drive is Infineon's application code generator for the company's 8-bit (XC886/8) and 16-bit (XC164CM/CS) MCU families. It provides initialisation, configuration and driver code to ease programming. The new DAvE Drive helps to reduce the software development time for brushless direct current (BLDC) motor controls due to easy configuration of complex peripherals. This allows designers of motor controls to quickly focus on application-specific software, such as the programming of the products.
Compared to the usual configuration tools, the DAvE Drive software tool generates complete algorithms and does not derive from libraries. It also provides flexible code generation for customer-selected motors, reducing system design time significantly. Also, it implements block commutation as well as field oriented control.
Infineon's new DAvE Drive software tool is included in the BLDC Drive Application Kit which is a modular extension of the company's 8- and 16-bit Easy Kits. The combined tools comprise a complete development environment for industrial and automotive motor control applications consisting of microcontroller hardware, software, power semiconductors, and motor drive.
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