Developers looking to accelerate their industrial automation designs can now benefit from an ARM Cortex-A8 system solution with multiple integrated industrial communication protocols, offered by Texas Instruments.
The Sitara AM335x microprocessors (MPUs) deliver power dissipation levels below 7 mW, along with two industrial automation hardware development tools, complete software and analog signal chain complement to provide a total industrial automation system solution. Using this solution, developers can get to market faster with industrial automation designs, including input/output (I/O) devices, human machine interfaces (HMIs) and programmable logic controllers (PLCs).
The devices include a programmable real-time unit (PRU) on-chip interface to enable real-time industrial communications capability (master and slave) to support popular protocols such as EtherCAT, Ethernet/IP, PROFIBUS, PROFINET, POWERLINK and SERCOS III. This PRU + ARM architecture eliminates the need for an external ASIC or FPGA to reduce system complexity and save on bill of materials (BOM) costs.
The AM335x MPUs also include other key, on-chip industrial peripherals – CAN, ADC, USB + PHY and two-port Gigabit Ethernet with IEEE1588 – to enable fast network connectivity and rapid data throughput, as well as connection to sensors, actuators and motor control.
Specifically targeted to enable sensors, actuators, motor drives, communications modules and gateways needing industrial slave communications, the AM3356 and AM3357 offer a low-performance 275 MHz solution. These two devices do not require an external memory or an operating system, making the system solution simple and compact.
Offering high performance of up to 720 MHz, the AM3356 and AM3357 are well suited for high-performance PLC applications that need to control various I/O devices in an automation system such as electric motors, pneumatic or hydraulic cylinders, magnetic relays solenoids and more.
Aimed at designing HMI products, the AM3354, AM3358 and AM3359 offer an on-chip 3D graphics accelerator which, combined with the integrated touch screen controller, enables rich and intuitive graphical user touch screen interfaces. For HMI applications not requiring integrated industrial communications, the AM3354 and AM3352 offer lower-cost options.
Accompanying the new microprocessors are two industrial hardware development tools to enable customers to easily incorporate industrial communication standards in their industrial automation designs.
The AM3359 industrial development kit (IDK) is an extensive development tool enabling customers to evaluate all popular industrial communications and motor control applications. The kit has many different evaluation features such as 512 MB of DDR2 memory, dual motor drivers, digital I/O, a C2000 Piccolo microcontroller with integrated analog to digital converters, a Stellaris ARM Cortex-M3 microcontroller, USB, Ethernet, SPI, I²C and much more.
The AM3359 industrial communications engine (ICE) is a pocket-sized, form-factor optimised hardware tool for I/O devices and sensors needing to add industrial communications.
Further easing development is a software development kit (SDK) with free, production-ready, certified software for industrial automation, supporting Linux, Android and Windows Embedded Compact 7 for high-end applications. For low-end applications, the SDK contains the compact, real-time SYS/BIOS operating system. The SDK also includes support for popular industrial communications protocols, industrial automation design demos, applications notes and videos.
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