TI's new Hercules TMS570 ARM safety MCUs

The folks at Texas Instruments (TI) have announced 12 new Hercules TMS570 ARM Cortex-R4 safety microcontrollers, a complementary TPS65831-Q1 multi-rail safety power management integrated circuit (PMIC) and the DRV3201-Q1 safety motor driver.

The Hercules TMS570 safety microcontrollers, along with TI's first functional safety PMIC and the industry's first functional safety motor driver, form a "safety motor control chipset" and maximize failure detection and mitigation while minimizing software overhead. The new motor control safety chipset adheres to the SafeTI-26262 and SafeTI-61508 design packages, helping customers more easily achieve ISO 26262 and IEC 61508 certification and accelerate time to market with safety-critical automotive and transportation motor control applications.

Perfect for advanced driver assistance systems, electric power steering, hybrid and electric vehicles, rail propulsion control, aviation anti-skid control, off-road vehicles and more, the newest Hercules TMS570 safety microcontrollers expand the product line to include 36 configurations from which customers can choose to meet application-specific needs. The new Hercules TMS570LS12x/11x floating-point safety microcontrollers provide additional memory and performance configurations with expanded motor control capabilities while the Hercules TMS570LS04x/03x safety microcontrollers provide a smaller package, lower cost, entry-line solution with integrated motor control interfaces.  The compatible PMIC combines multiple power supplies and safety features in a single device to reduce design time and board space. First on the market to support start/stop functionality, the motor driver integrates functional safety architecture for protection and monitoring.

Features and benefits of the new Hercules TMS570 safety microcontrollers:

• Expanded range of performance and memory options, from 80 MHz to 180 MHz lockstep ARM Cortex-R4 cores and 256KB, 384KB, 1MB and 1.25MB Flash, provide designers more choices and scalability for their feature-rich safety products.  
• Achieve ISO 26262 and IEC 61508 more easily in system designs through component compliance to industry safety standards.
• Hardware safety features provide a high level of online diagnostics with lockstep cores; memory protection for the CPU and bus masters; error correction code (ECC) for Flash and RAM with single-bit error correction and double-bit error detection (SECDED); CPU and RAM built-in-self-test (BIST) for detection of potential latent faults; intelligent error signaling module for action based on safety error; parity on peripheral RAMs; redundant analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) and timers; and continuous voltage and clock monitoring.
• Integrated motor control capability with enhanced pulse width modulation, sensor capture and quadrature encoder interfaces on chip eliminate multiple external components for motor control. The 32-channel timer coprocessor serves as a diverse, redundant motor control channel and checks the integrity of the pulse-width modulators (PWMs) in the motor control loop.  
• Pin compatibility with the Hercules TMS570LS31x/21x safety microcontrollers, which were introduced last year and are scheduled for production by Oct. 31, 2012 (Hercules TMS570LS12x/11x floating-point safety microcontrollers only).
• On-chip FlexRay, CAN, Ethernet, LIN connectivity enables standard automotive networks and provides several options for data collection.

Features and benefits of TI's first functional safety PMIC, the TPS65381-Q1:

• Includes multiple power supply rails in a single device, including an asynchronous buck switch-mode power-supply converter with internal FET converts the input battery voltage to 6V pre-regulator output, which supplies other regulators.  Two linear regulators with internal FETs can supply power to a controller area network (CAN) and to the microcontroller input/outputs (I/Os). One linear regulator controller supplies the microcontroller core.  This integration reduces design time and saves valuable board space.
• An additional integrated sensor supply provides both short-to-ground and short-to-battery protection that can supply power to a sensor outside the electronic control unit (ECU).
• Functional safety architecture integrates features such as question-answer watchdog, MCU error-signal monitor, clock monitoring on internal oscillators, self-check on clock monitor, cyclic redundancy check (CRC) on non-volatile memory and a reset circuit for the microcontroller. A BIST allows for monitoring the device functionality at start-up, and a dedicated diagnostic state allows the microcontroller to check the PMIC safety functions, removing the need for an additional monitoring microcontroller to reduce cost and board space.

Features and benefits of the industry's first functional safety motor driver, the DRV3201-Q1:

• Bridge driver dedicated to automotive three-phase brushless DC motor, providing six dedicated drivers for normal level N-Channel MOSFET transistors up to 250nC charge. The driver source/sink currents are programmable for easy output slope adjustment.
• First motor driver in the market that supports start/stop functionality, allowing full control on the power stages at low battery voltage down to 4.75V.
• Functional safety architecture integrates features such as voltage drain-to-source (VDS) monitoring, phase-comparators, shoot-through protection, dead-time control, temperature warning and protection, battery voltage detection for under and over voltage protection.

Documentation, tools, software and support to ease safety-critical development

• Safety documentation including a safety manual and safety analysis reports, details how to implement Hercules microcontrollers, PMIC and motor driver in a safety-critical application, as well as failure modes, effects and diagnostic analysis (FMEDA) that provides the failure rate information needed to meet safety standards.
• Hercules Development Kits – Get up and running quickly with full-featured kits (TMDXLS04HDK or TMDXLS12HDK) that include a development board, TI's Code Composer Studio integrated development environment (IDE) v. 5, HALCoGen peripheral configuration tool and safety demo.
• Hercules Motor Control Kit – Spin motors safely in minutes with the Hercules TMS570 Motor Control Kit (DRV8301-LS12-KIT). Included in the kit is a TMS570 controlCARD (TMDXLS12CNCD), also available standalone, with the TPS65381-Q1 power supply, motor driver EVM and Teknic servo motor. TI's MotorWare software with field-oriented-control (FOC) algorithms support sensorless feedback as a redundant/safe channel to a position sensor and example projects leverage the ARM CMSIS DSP library and HALCoGen peripheral library with built-in safety support.
• SafeTI ARM Compiler Qualification Kit – Establish confidence in your development tools with TI's new Compiler Qualification Kit to help document, analyze, validate and qualify use of the TI ARM compiler to meet the requirements of the ISO 26262 and IEC 61508 standards. An early adopter release is available now; full-featured release coming in 1Q 2013.
• AutoSAR software for ISO 26262: Designers can get the Safe Automotive Open System Architecture (AutoSAR) with protection mechanisms to ASIL D from TTTech/Vector. ISO 26262 AutoSAR support is available from Vector and Elektrobit.

Pricing and availability
Hercules TMS570 microcontrollers range from $5 to $22 USD in 1,000-unit quantities and samples are immediately available for order.  A variety of free software and tools ranging from $79 to $599 USD are listed above and available today.  The TPS65381-Q1 will be available in a HTSSOP-32 (DAP) PowerPad package in December 2012 at $2.60 USD in 1,000-unit quantities.  The DRV3201-Q1 will be available in a HTQFP-64 (PAP) PowerPad package in December 2012 at $3.10 USD in 1,000 quantities.

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