Product category:
Microprocessors, Microcontrollers and DSPs
News Release from: Zilog | Subject: Z8 Encore! MC
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial
Team on 05 October 2005
Flash MCUs turn to sensorless motor
control
The Z8 Encore! MC family is a new generation of Flash MCUs targeted at sensorless brushless DC and AC induction motor control applications.
The Z8 Encore! MC family is a new generation of Flash MCUs targeted at sensorless brushless DC (BLDC) and AC induction motor control applications Available immediately, the Z8 Encore! MC series is initially offered with a choice of 16Kbyte (Z8FMC16100), 8Kbyte (Z8FMC08100) or 4Kbyte (Z8FMC04100) of Flash memory
This article was originally published on Electronicstalk on 7 Feb 2006 at 8.00am (UK)
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Buy one dev kit, get one free and win a prize
Zilog is offering a free Z8 Encore! XP development kit with each purchase of its Z8 Encore! MC development kit - and to add more spice, there is a free prize draw.
8bit MCU brings vector control to appliances
The Zilog Z8 Encore! MC is billed as the first 8bit MCU to offer vector control capability.
The rapidly growing motor control market is an extremely diverse sector, with continuously expanding market opportunities in applications such as HVAC, power tools, household appliances, automotive, pumps and industrial drives.
In the HVAC market, for example, figures published by Appliance Magazine stated that in-room air conditioning unit manufacturing alone rose from just 500,000 units in the USA in 1990 to an estimated 42.5 million units in 2004.
Research published by Selantek in 2004 stated that the global microcontroller market in motor control applications, by unit volume, in 2003 was 558 million units, worth more than US $1.3 billion.
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By 2009, this is expected to increase to almost 1.8 billion units by volume, with an estimated value exceeding $US 2.5 billion.
During the same period the compound annual growth rate for this market, by volume, is predicted to be 21% per year and, by US dollar value, 11% per year.
"Today's motor control applications bring a set of challenges and demands ideal for versatile and full-featured application-specific 8bit MCUs", commented Zilog Chairman and CEO James Thorburn.
"We have conducted extensive research into customer requirements in this market and have developed a new family of microcontrollers that we believe are leading edge solutions for advanced motor control architectures, including sensorless BLDC motor control systems".
"Our strategy is to create and produce innovative, highly integrated, price-competitive system solutions for motor control technologies".
"These solutions will help solve engineering challenges such as fast overcurrent detection and fault control, reliable operation, and back-EMF sensing at a wide range of speeds including very low speeds, along with extremely smooth startup and reversal of the direction of rotation".
Zilog's motor control offering not only includes the actual silicon but also the firmware, development tools and turnkey solutions, as well as expert application support.
The Z8 Encore! MC family brings with it a rich set of on-chip features and peripherals, all of which have been integrated to address the challenges in the design of advanced motor control systems and architectures, while helping reduce overall system cost through the elimination of external electronic components.
The Z8FMC16100 serves up a number of key benefits designed to improve performance, add scalability and keep overall system cost to a minimum - all important factors in motor control application design and development.
For example, the chip provides for seamless operation of the motor at slower speeds, hence reducing power consumption and increasing energy efficiency.
The on-chip integrated analogue to digital convertor (ADC) with its unique "timestamp" feature is coupled to the three-phase PWM output module, a feature that allows for very accurate speed control.
In addition, the advanced integrated analogue modules allow for current sampling, as well as on-the-fly implementation of torque or speed control.
In many applications, electrical noise generated by the motor can interfere with the microcontroller's operation.
In the Z8 Encore! MC MCUs, using the highly accurate internal precision oscillator as the system clock source (one of a number of system clock options), along with a very robust chip design, provide for a very high level of noise immunity.
Other key features include direct routing of the current sensing module to the PWM module, respectively, providing for very fast shutdown of the system during an overcurrent fault.
Zilog's microcontroller-based design offers the customer the option to add more complex and differentiating features.
The 16Kbyte of onboard Flash memory and 17 general purpose I/Os allow for incorporating a variety of new system functions.
Another benefit that the Z8 Encore! MC family offers is multiple, integrated communication peripherals (I2C, SPI, UART and LIN), which means that the unit will be compatible with whatever communication protocol the end user device uses.
"One of the key advantages of the Z8 Encore! MC family is that peripherals such as the operational amplifier are all integrated in the hardware, compared with a number of competing solutions which, due to design constraints, are integrated in the software", continued Thorburn.
This on-chip hardware solution also eliminates the need for customers to write complex algorithms in order to address this problem, thus freeing up CPU resources, improving performance and ease of use.
Our approach allows more design flexibility for the engineer, reduces bill-of-material costs and PCB space, cuts time to market and delivers better performance by minimising external interfacing.
This feature-rich performance is compacted into a 32-pin QFN package requiring only 5 x 5mm of PCB space.
Our motor control devices bring numerous additional benefits to customers including energy savings by providing a means to control the motor speed and torque more accurately.
The new devices have already been received well during early customer trials, and we expect to announce several design wins over the next few months".
Although the Z8 Encore! MC family has been designed with sensorless three-phase BLDC, three-phase AC induction motors and switched reluctance applications in mind, Zilog already offers the Z8 Encore! XP family of devices that are well suited for many applications including universal, AC induction and brushed DC motor control applications.
The Z8 Encore! MC family is available via Zilog's distributor network or online.
Pricing is $2.50 in volumes of 5000 units for the 16Kbyte version, standard temperature range.
Internal factory programming is available from Zilog at a nominal charge.
Third-party programming support for the new devices is offered by a number of third-party partners, including BP Micro, Hi-Lo and Data I/O.
Zilog's complete solution for small appliance motor control design is backed by reference designs, software libraries, and application notes to further speed up time to market.
Also available for the Z8 Encore! MC family is a comprehensive motor-control-specific development tool suite, which retail at US $199.95.
This suite is a complete out-of-the-box motor control solution, including a BLDC motor, application board, ZDS II with full ANSI C compiler, motor control software code and an optoisolated USB smart cable for debugging and programming.
The optoisolated USB smart cable is also offered at $75.00 and is compatible with Z8 Encore! and Z8 Encore! XP products.
In addition, Zilog offers a high-end in-circuit emulator (ICE) kit, which includes package adapters and event trace functions.
This retails for US $1999.
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