TI’s safety motor control chipset integrates safety MCUs, PMIC, and motor driver

Toni McConnel

October 12, 2012

Toni McConnel

Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) has launched 12 new Hercules TMS570 ARM Cortex-R4 safety microcontrollers, complementary TPS65831-Q1 multi-rail safety power management integrated circuit (PMIC), and DRV3201-Q1 safety motor driver from TI.

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.

Designed 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 compatible PMIC combines multiple power supplies and safety features in a single device to reduce design time and board space.

• 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.
• Achieve ISO 26262 and IEC 61508 more easily..
• Hardware safety features provide a high level of online diagnostics.
• Integrated motor control capability with enhanced pulse width modulation, sensor capture and quadrature encoder interfaces on chip eliminate multiple external components for motor control.
• Pin compatibility with the Hercules TMS570LS31x/21x safety microcontrollers.
• On-chip FlexRay, CAN, Ethernet, LIN connectivity.

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

• Includes multiple power supply rails in a single device.
• 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.

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.
• 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.

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