Renesas releases RZ/T2M motor-control MPUs for fast, high-precision control

Renesas Electronics Corporation, a supplier of advanced semiconductor solutions, has released 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 and highly precise real-time, motor-control capabilities and the latest industrial Ethernet on a single chip, which supports functional safety operation. By providing all essential peripheral functions for motor control, the RZ/T2M enables customers to reduce the number of external components, thereby decreasing BOM costs and product size.

“There is growing demand for factory automation and the deployment of industrial robots to boost productivity,” said Toshihide Tsuboi, VP of Industrial Automation Business Division at Renesas. “The RZ/T2M is capable of controlling the servo motors that drive robots at extremely high speed and with high precision. I anticipate that 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-linked directly to the CPU enables the CPU to access these functions with low latency.

In addition, the large memory capacity (576 KB) is tightly coupled with the CPU, reducing the fluctuation in execution time that can occur when cache memory is used and delivering deterministic, fast-response processing. These advantages enable the RZ/T2M to deliver rapid and highly precise control for applications that require high performance such as AC servos, inverters, and industrial robots.

In addition to major industrial networking protocols such as EtherCAT, PROFINET RT, and EtherNet/IP, Renesas has added support for the PROFINET IRT protocol in the 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 complies with functional safety requirements involves the addition of 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 one external MCU is needed to implement functional safety. The RZ/T2M can perform functional safety operation in parallel with motor control and network communication.

In addition, later this year Renesas plans to release functional safety solutions, including a SIL3-certified software kit combination that includes a self-test software kit enabling failure self-diagnosis by the RZ/T2M, and a SIL3 system software kit for mutual diagnosis and software isolation functionality. The IAR Embedded Workbench for Arm Functional Safety Edition, an integrated development environment certified 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 in their next design can be sure that IAR Systems will support them with certified development tools and professional technical support globally, substantially reducing both design time and project cost.”