Microcontrollers take motor control onboard

Edited by the Electronicstalk editorial team Nov 6, 2003

Two new MCUs from NEC Electronics for inverter control systems in home electronics appliances have achieved the industry's highest speed of 64MHz and 82MIPS (Dhrystone 1.1).

Two new MCUs from NEC Electronics for inverter control systems in home electronics appliances have achieved the industry's highest speed of 64MHz and 82MIPS (Dhrystone 1.1).

Designed mainly for electronic appliances such as air conditioners, washing machines, clothes dryers and refrigerators, the V850E/IA3 and V850E/IA4 can control one and two motors, respectively.

The MCUs are positioned at the highest end of application specific standard product (ASSP) for inverter control in NEC Electronics' microcontroller V850 series, which has already shipped over 230 million units worldwide.

With the greatly increased performance, the new devices allow the users to generate a precise motor control in load change, rotation speed change, and parallel control, while avoiding harmonic problems.

Compared with the previous product, the V850E/IA2, the new devices are 60% faster in instruction speed.

Moreover, the size of built-in ROM has been expanded from 128 to 256Kbyte.

Either 256Kbyte of Flash ROM or 128Kbyte of mask ROM is available for the V850E/IA3, and the V850E/IA4 has additional 256Kbyte mask ROM in choice.

RAM size has been increased from 6 to 12Kbytes.

To further enrich the inverter control function, pulsewidth modulation (PWM) timers are embedded as well as two high-speed 10bit A/D convertors with 2us conversion speed and an A/D convertor with delta-sigma system.

Furthermore, an operational amplifier and comparator have been added on-chip in the new products to benefit the users with system cost reduction.

Gleichmann Electronics offers two types of debug emulators for the V850E/IA3 and V850E/IA4.

One is an inexpensive card-type on-chip debug emulator (the N-Wire Card), the other is a full-function in-circuit emulator supporting 64MHz operation.

The emulators are both equipped with the function to prevent circuit burnout that is inherent in debugging inverter systems.