The Microcontroller Improved by Texas Instruments

Published:2011/9/14 3:38:00 Author:Li xiao na From:SeekIC

For the safety-critical applications, Texas Instruments has improved the range and performance of its microcontrollers. The RM4x family of MCUs is based on dual ARM Cortex-R4F floating-point cores with clock speeds up 220MHz. This microcontroller has the supplier’s highest performance for industrial automation, servo drives and medical instrumentation. It supports single and double precision floating-point operation to execute complex algorithms.

The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) 61508 SIL-3 safety standard is the safety specification of the microcontroller. An Ethernet interface is also along with CAN and USB, and up to 3Mbyte flash and 256kbyte on-chip RAM. It integrates TI’s existing Cortex-based safety microcontrollers, the TMS570 and TMS470M families. All these three will be marketed under the platform of Hercules.

With the MCUs implement safety features in dedicated hardware, the random faults can be detected and protected. The dual ARM Cortex-R4F floating-point cores in lockstep, used in the TMS5709 and RM4x families provide on-line diagnostic features. The CPU and RAM built-in-self-test are used to detect potential latent faults without software overhead and there is memory protection. Error correction code for flash and RAM with single and double bit error detection evaluated in the lockstep CPUs “without performance impact”, said the supplier.

Based on dual ARM Cortex-R4F floating-point cores in lockstep, the TMS570 MCUs run at up to 180MHz. they gain ISO 26262 ASIL-D and IEC 61508 SIL-3 safety standards, and they are AEC-Q100 qualified to satisfy automotive requirements. Its automotive temperature ranges up to 125 deg C. Hercules TMS470M MCU family is AEC-Q100 qualified to meet automotive requirements and support for IEC 61508 system safety requirements.

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