Renesas Electronics Corporation, a provider of advanced semiconductor solutions, has launched its highest-performance RZ/T2M motor control microprocessor units (MPUs) for applications such as AC servo drives and industrial robots.
The RZ/T2M combines fast, highly accurate real-time motor control capabilities and the latest industrial Ethernet into a single chip, which supports functional safety operation. By providing all essential peripheral functions for motor control, the RZ/T2M allows customers to reduce the number of external components, thereby decreasing BOM costs and product size.
“There is a growing demand for factory automation and deployment of industrial robots to increase productivity,” said Toshihide Tsuboi, vice president of Renesas Industrial Automation Business Division. “The RZ/T2M is capable of controlling servomotors that drive robots at very high speed and with high precision. I predict it will contribute to the development and widespread adoption of sophisticated industrial robots that can work safely alongside humans.”
Real-time control
The RZ/T2M is built around two Arm Cortex-R52 cores with a maximum operating frequency of 800 MHz. Connecting the peripheral functions used for motor control to a dedicated bus connected directly to the CPU allows the CPU to access these functions with low latency .
Additionally, the large memory capacity (576 KB) is tightly coupled to the CPU, reducing runtime fluctuation that can occur when cache memory is used and providing fast-responsive, deterministic processing. These advantages enable the RZ/T2M to provide fast, highly accurate control for applications that require high performance, such as AC servos, inverters and industrial robots.
In addition to leading industrial network protocols such as EtherCAT, PROFINET RT and EtherNet/IP, Renesas has added support for the PROFINET IRT protocol in RZ/T2M. The new MPU also includes an Ethernet switch that supports the next-generation Time Sensitive Networking (TSN) standard, allowing multiple devices to operate in precise synchronization.
Functional safety
In most cases, building industrial equipment that meets functional safety requirements involves adding two external MCUs for safety monitoring, which increases BOM costs.
The RZ/T2M has a hardware configuration designed with functional safety operation in mind, so only an external MCU is required to implement functional safety. The RZ/T2M can perform functional safety operation in parallel with motor control and network communication.
Additionally, later this year, Renesas plans to launch functional safety solutions, including a SIL3-certified software kit combination that includes a self-test software kit that enables self-diagnosis of faults by the RZ/T2M and a SIL3 system for mutual diagnosis. and software isolation functionality. The IAR Embedded Workbench for Arm Functional Safety Edition, a certified integrated development environment for functional safety-related development and an essential tool for deploying the above software, will support the new RZ/T2M processors.
“Functional safety continues to be an important requirement for many of our customers,” said Anders Holmberg, CTO at IAR Systems. “Companies choosing the new Renesas RZ/T2M for their next project can be assured that IAR Systems will support them with certified development tools and professional technical support around the world, substantially reducing project time and cost. ”
