New Industry Products

MCUs bring 16-bit ADC Precision to Industrial Power Control

August 25, 2014 by Jeff Shepard

Texas Instruments, Inc. (TI) today launched the new C2000™ Delfino™ 32-bit F2837xS microcontrollers (MCUs). These single-core MCUs are the first in the industry to offer four 16-bit analog-to-digital converters (ADCs), enabling precision feedback in power control applications. They are pin- and software-compatible with the recently introduced dual-core C2000 Delfino F2837xD MCUs and help expedite development when scaling from higher performance industrial control applications to mid-tier control designs.

The Delfino F2837xS MCUs are also the next-generation, single-core solutions for those using the preceding Delfino F2833x MCU series. Developers can utilize existing investments from the F2833x MCUs and transition to the software-compatible F2837xS MCUs, which provide greater CPU performance and more advanced analog and control peripherals.

Features and benefits of Delfino F2837xS MCUs include: Powerful combination of C28x and real-time control accelerator (CLA) provides a combined 400MIPS of floating-point performance, enabling quick and efficient management of multiple control tasks simultaneously. The C28x CPU is further accelerated for trigonometry and complex math operations: Swiftly execute trigonometric-based algorithms used in transforms and control functions with the new trigonometric math unit (TMU) hardware accelerator integrated in the C28x core and automatically executed in the compiler. Accelerate complex math operations common in encoded communication applications with the Viterbi Complex Unit (VCU II) hardware accelerator, also integrated in the C28x core and automatically executed in the compiler.

Intelligent system partitioning by offloading demanding control loop analysis from the main CPU (C28x core) to the CLA, creating additional bandwidth and allowing the main processor to focus on other tasks such as system diagnostics, applications management or lower frequency control loops. Precision feedback in power control applications with four 16-bit ADCs — a first in the industry for single-core MCUs. Increased system throughput, such as monitoring voltages and currents of three phases of a motor while simultaneously software decoding high-frequency resolver feedback.

Maximize system-level integration and save on bill of material costs with other high-integrity analog and control peripherals, including sigma delta demodulators, comparators, digital-to-analog converters (DACs) and an abundance of control and communication peripherals. Simultaneously process eight sigma-delta modulated channels, each with threshold comparators and a seamless interface to the TI AMC1204 isolated delta-sigma modulator. Migrate from legacy F2833x MCUs easily. Using the same C28x core and many of the same peripherals, previous high-performance C2000 MCUs are software compatible with the new Delfino F2837xS MCUs, which offer more signal processing bandwidth, faster flash performance, and premium analog and control peripherals.

Speed time to market and reduce development costs by creating products of varying performance levels within this new F2837xS MCU series, which provides a pin- and software-compatible architecture to the dual-core Delfino F2837xD MCUs and future devices. And centralized software development with examples, header files, application libraries and much more can be found in controlSUITEâ„¢ software.

Because the Delfino F2837xS MCUs are scalable and compatible with the Delfino F2837xD MCUs, they share the same development platform — the Delfino F2837xD Experimenter Kit. The Delfino F2837xD Experimenter Kit is based on the familiar C2000 controlCARD form factor, allowing designers to use this controlCARD with previously released C2000 application kits.

Fully-featured C2000 Delfino F28377S 32-bit MCUs (TMX320F28377S) are now sampling. TI also provides designers with more variants in this generation with different memory and peripheral mixes in the TMS32028376S, TMS320F28375S and TMS320F28374S configurations, which will start at $11.34 USD in 1K unit orders. Developers can evaluate the new Delfino MCUs using the Delfino F2837xD Experimenter Kit docking station (TMDXDOCK28377D) for $219, which includes the modular controlCARD (TMDXCNCD28377D), or purchase the controlCARD separately for $159.