TI Korea (CEO Kent Jeon, www.ti.com/ww/kr ) September 4, 2012 – TI (CEO Kent Jeon) announced the availability of four new compatible motor control kits that enable developers to more easily develop motor control solutions while saving system costs. These development kits can operate three-phase brushless DC (BLDC) motors within minutes. Developers can conveniently develop products across various performance levels using a diverse range of TI MCU families, ranging from 16-bit ultra-low-power MSP430 devices to 32-bit ARM-based floating-point Hercules Safety MCUs and Stellaris MCUs. As part of a robust ecosystem, all four new development kits provide everything necessary—including hardware, software, and resources—enabling motors to run within minutes of receiving the product.

The four new motor control kits include object-oriented software and drivers to simplify coding. They are also compatible with TI MCU and motor driver product families, allowing for easy and cost-effective portability. Each motor control kit includes a motor driver that provides stable and comprehensive protection, enabling cycle-level monitoring of overcurrent, overheating, cross-conduction, and undervoltage conditions. The integration of protection functions reduces design complexity, minimizes board space, and improves system reliability.

Design made even more convenient with modular tools and software
The kit includes a plug-in controlCARD module that allows developers to select the appropriate voltage and current combinations for the motor driver and evaluate which MCU is best suited using different MCUs. All kits include firmware that enables the immediate execution of TI's sensorless InstaSPIN-BLDC™ motor control software solution right out of the box. The free InstaSPIN-BLDC utilizes an innovative inverse EMF (electromagnetic field) technique that enables any motor to operate within seconds without the use of sensors or knowledge of motor parameters. Unlike conventional inverse EMF zero-crossing techniques, InstaSPIN-BLDC can extend sensorless operation to slower speeds and offers superior durability against miscommutation caused by sudden speed changes. The Stellaris kit also includes sensorless SMO (sliding mode observer) FOC (field-oriented control) speed and provides torque control applications. The Hercules kit adds firmware for sensored (encoder) speed and torque control, along with SMO to provide sensorless redundancy for use in safety systems.

The motor control kit includes TI’s Code Composer Studio™ integrated development environment (IDE). Using the graphical user interface, evaluation tasks can be easily performed using the motor designs included in the kit or your own motor designs.

Key Features and Benefits of the MSP430 DRV8312-430FR-KIT Motor Control Kit
• Based on the controlCARD module equipped with a 24MHz MSP430FR5739 MCU, 16KB FRAM, five 16-bit timers, and a 10-bit ADC, it is possible to develop robust yet highly cost-effective motor control designs with a small footprint.
• By integrating onboard ultra-low-power non-volatile FRAM (ferroelectric random access memory) technology, remarkably fast read and write speeds are possible, providing a unified memory capable of storing program and information data in a single memory block, and offering nearly unlimited write endurance.
• Provided as free support software including motor control source code and the InstaSPIN-BLDC library, MSP430ware is available as a comprehensive software resource including peripheral driver libraries and APIs.
• The DRV8312 motor driver is capable of driving 3-phase motors continuously at 3.5A at less than 50V.

Key Features and Benefits of Hercules DRV8301-LS31-KIT (TMS570) and DRV8301-RM48-KIT (RM4x) Safety Motor Control Kits
• Based on a controlCARD module featuring a dual-core lock-step Hercules ARM Cortex-R4F floating-point safety MCU with up to 220MHz performance, 3MB Flash, and safety architecture, suitable for transportation (TMS570) and industrial (RM4) safety motor control applications.
• Meets safety standards such as IEC61508 or ISO26262 by utilizing the architecture of the Hercules Safety MCU
• When generating PWM with example microcode for a flexible integrated 32-channel timer coprocessorTurn on quadrature encoder signal decoding
• Provides robust rotor angle measurement capabilities to complement shunt current-based rotor angle calculations using sliding mode observers, including Teknic's advanced servo motors with integrated encoders and Hall sensors.
• Easily develop safety motor control solutions by configuring and supporting peripherals with HALCoGen, connectivity stacks, and example motor projects from standard Hercules software.
The highly integrated DRV8301 motor pre-driver includes self-protection features and two programmable gain amplifiers, and controls inverters below 60V using external FETs.

Key Features and Benefits of the Stellaris DK-LM4F-DRV8312 Motor Control Kit
• A controlCARD module featuring an 80MHz ARM Cortex-M4 floating-point core Stellaris LM4F211 MCU, 256KB Flash, and two 12-bit ADCs, suitable for applications such as industrial pumps, fans, blowers, compressors, vacuum cleaners, power tools, and robots.
• The Stellaris LM4F211 floating-point MCU provides all the computational performance required to run various motor control solutions, StellarisWare® software libraries, and other custom-developed applications.
• The DRV8312 motor driver drives a 3-phase motor continuously at less than 50V and 3.5A.

Supply timing and price
With the new motor control kit, you can get started on design work faster than anyone else. The Hercules DRV8301-LS31-KIT and DRV8301-RM48-KIT safety motor control kits are priced at $499 and include Teknic servo motors and a 24V power supply. The MSP430 DRV8312-430FR-KIT and Stellaris DK-LM4F-DRV8312 kits are $299 each and include a 24V NEMA17 BLDC motor with a Hall sensor and a 24V power supply. Developers looking to build a compatible motor driver base can purchase the Hercules TMDX570LS31CNCD or TMDXRM48CNCD controlCARD module for $99. The MSP430 MSP-CNCD-FR5739 and Stellaris MDL-LM4F211CNCD controlCARD modules are available for purchase at $49 each.

More detailed information about TI's MCUs, motor drivers, tools, and software
• Download motor control block diagram, application notes, and selection guide: www.ti.com/motor
• Questions and troubleshooting in the TI E2E™ Community motor driver forum: www.ti.com/mcumotors-pr-e2e
• A new Motor Solutions Group forum where you can find blog posts and videos posted by TI motor experts from the TI E2E™ community: www.ti.com/mcumotors-pr-forum
• TI eStore: www.ti.com/estore
• Make the Switch to TI MCU: www.ti.com/maketheswitch
• For more information on TI's unified memory technology, FRAM: www.ti.com/fram
• TI MCU Facebook:trollers" target=_blank>www.facebook.com/timicrocontrollers

TI's diverse MCU and software portfolio
TI provides the widest range of microcontroller solutions, from general-purpose ultra-low-power MSP430™ MCUs to Stellaris® Cortex™-M MCUs, real-time control C2000™ MCUs, and Hercules™ Safety MCUs. By leveraging TI's complete software and hardware tools, as well as comprehensive partner products and technical support tools, you can accelerate time-to-market.

TI's Motor Drive
TI provides efficient, reliable, and cost-effective motor solutions by combining its rich history in motor drivers and controls with a vast portfolio of analog and microcontroller products, comprehensive tool products, software, and support. Customers can obtain solutions with the performance suitable for rapidly driving all types of motors, including ACIM (AC Induction), BLDC (DC), BLDC, PMSM, and stepper motors.