DualCore Offers Two ARM Cores for Motion Control
Dualcore Semiconductor has announced an industrial SoC (System on Chip) microcontroller, the DCIC9907, which contains two ARM 946E cores, two CAN channels, two 10/100 Mbit Ethernet MACs with HW extension for real-time protocols, and a versatile motion control logic capability, specifically targeted for time-critical and other industrial control applications. DCIC9907 is designed to be the central digital element of an advanced Servo System Platforms.
DCIC9907 is a highly integrated circuit, which supports many high-level functions for controlling and supervising industrial applications. This device enables the control of applications under difficult real-time conditions, such as tasks that need accurately predicted time performance under all conditions, even when running in parallel with an operating system. Within DCIC9907, one of the two ARM cores can be used for complex real-time control and the second one for system infrastructure, such as HMI (Human Machine Interface) and the required communication interfaces. For this purpose, the versatile real-time operating system EUROS (www.euros-embedded.com) has been ported to DCIC9907.
The two 10/100 MBit Ethernet MAC ports have hardware extensions which support real time protocols via Ethernet. The DCIC9907 is designed for use in time-critical, cost-conscious control applications. Features incorporated in DCIC9907 are the direct result of feedback from key industrial users; for instance, DCIC9907's includes 16 hardware interrupts controlled via the internal VIC (Vector Interrupt Controller) with a total of 32 interrupts available (16 Software + 16 Hardware).
An additional unique feature is a complex-motion control block integrated into DCIC9907. This control block has all the built-in features necessary to control and supervise any kind of electronic motor directly from the IC. For example, it is possible to control 3 PWM channels in parallel. DCIC9907 can be clocked up to 128 MHz and provides sufficient performance even for very demanding control applications. With 109 I/O pins, DCIC9907 represents a highly flexible System on Chip (SoC).
DCIC9907 was designed to keep power dissipation as low as possible - so no need for heat sinks or even fans! This means that the form factor of customer products can be reduced to a minimum, system costs are decreased and reliability is increased because critical heat on silicon will not be reached.
DCIC9907 will be available from March 2006 in an industrial temperature range, 305-pin BGA package at under $US20 in volume.
