March 16, 2012, Seoul, Korea – Freescale Semiconductor (NYSE: FSL, www.freescale.com ) today announced the new S12 MagniV 16-bit S12ZVM complex-signal microcontroller (MCU) family. The S12ZVM is the most integrated automotive brushless DC (BLDC) motor control solution currently on the market and will accelerate the trend of transitioning from DC motors to BLDC motors. Freescale’s S12ZVM single-chip motor control solution enables designers to shrink application size, reduce audible noise, and increase power efficiency.

Freescale's innovative S12ZVM family combines four elements of a system—an MCU, MOSFET gate drivers, voltage regulators, and a Local Interconnect Network (LIN) physical layer—into a single-chip solution. Typically, implementing these four functions requires two to four chips. Through on-chip integration, Freescale was able to reduce the physical footprint of the PCB by up to 50% compared to similar discrete solutions.

Automotive manufacturers are constantly seeking ways to reduce vehicle weight and power consumption, as this can ultimately lead to improved fuel efficiency. Electronic system suppliers and electric motor manufacturers are also embracing this trend, but they often face difficulties when using customized solutions due to suboptimal performance or a lack of scalability. The S12ZVM product family is available in a wide range of product versions and supports CAN and LIN communication protocols with various memory capacities and package options. This enables customers to develop true platform solutions for reusable hardware and software designs in applications such as HVAC blowers, wipers, fuel pumps, and coolant pumps.

"Currently, no single-chip BLDC motor control solution provides the memory capacity and performance scalability to execute field-oriented control," said Ray Cornyn, Senior Vice President of Automotive Microcontrollers at Freescale. "The scalable S12Z core, announced as part of the S12 MagniV portfolio, is a key element that enables Freescale's highly efficient and ultra-compact motor control solutions."

The scalable S12Z core, the centerpiece of the new S12ZVM family, operates at 100 MHz and offers significant design advantages over the previous version. Specifically, increased linearity of the address space (eliminating the need for memory paging) simplifies software development and enables the portability of software across multiple applications. Additionally, new instructions have been introduced to accelerate fractional arithmetic operations, which are widely used in precise motor control techniques such as flux-based/vector control algorithms. Furthermore, incremental improvements, such as code size reduction, have been achieved through close collaboration with the key development tool partner, Cosmic Software. This product family has been further perfected with a software library capable of shortening the learning curve of optimized dedicated motor control software components.

The S12ZVM family is a reasonable choice whether you are replacing mechanical or hydraulic systems with efficient BLDC motors or simply replacing standard DC motors with more reliable BLDC motors.

Supply situation
After samples of the S12ZVM 64LQFP package option were supplied to Alpha customers in the first quarter, the 48LQFP package version is scheduled to be supplied in the second quarter. General availability is planned for the second half of 2012. Further details can be found on the S12ZVM product summary page.