September 1996, vol.13, no. 6 ASIC news DSP news Networking news Memory news Mixed-Signal news TI news

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The industrial revolution meets the DSP By Gregg Bennett, TI DSP digital motor control marketing manager Manufacturing has experienced two phenomenal changes in the past 100 years. First came the industrial revolution, with motors and belts and gears to make work faster and more efficient. Then came the advent of the information age, with powerful computers to help manage businesses and operate equipment. Increasingly, the technology of these two eras has merged on the factory floor to cut costs, speed production and ensure quality. Digital Signal Processor Solutions (DSPS) from Texas Instruments are taking this merger of technologies to a new level -- the level for the 21st century. A new DSP from TI, the TMS320C240, promises to supplant many of the high-maintenance mechanical parts that have been the guts of manufacturing machinery since the industrial revolution began. Hydraulics, belts, gears, clutches and pulleys may soon give way to sophisticated adaptive and variable speed control of brushless electric motors. These inexpensive brushless motors could drive equipment directly instead of depending on the linkages required to achieve variable speeds from single-speed motors. A breakthrough in industrial motor control TI's breakthrough 'C240 DSP Solution integrates a 20-million-instruction-per-second (MIPS) processor that runs sophisticated motor control formulae, a specialized motor control circuit called an "event manager," and a comprehensive group of motor control peripherals -- all on a single microchip. The "event manager" directly supports generation of pulse width modulated (PWM) outputs to drive the motor power amplifier. It contains motor control features that include timers, comparators, dead-band generation logic, a state space vector generator and direct inputs for optical encoders. Additional chip peripherals include two serial interfaces, dual analog-to-digital converters, digital input and output lines and on-chip memory. The processing power of the 'C240 DSP enables the use of math-intensive motor control algorithms, which allow sensor- less and adaptive control designs to be used in mainstream products for the first time. Eliminating external sensors memory chips, mechanical gearing and other parts helps reduce system cost and size. New flexibility and new markets for designers For automation system design engineers, variable-speed direct drive offers flexibility never before possible in manufacturing equipment. It allows the use of smaller motors that weigh less, require less physical space and are easier to install and maintain. It also can cut power consumption by as much as 40 percent in some cases. Because the 'C240 DSP is an intelligent control processor, the all-electronic control systems it enables can be adapted to a variety of operations. Intricate speed variations, along with soft starts when a motor reverses direction, can be programmed into the DSP, Allowing a single basic design to fit a variety of applications. This kind of design flexibility is characteristic of the DSP Solutions that TI creates for industrial use. In many cases, TI's customers are entrepreneurial concerns that make equipment for highly specialized niche markets. Frequently, these customers find that the flexibility built into TI's DSP Solutions allows them to reach new markets without extensive equipment redesign. The same flexibility allows them to reach their markets quickly with new generations of equipment. Building machines with vision TI's state-of-the art imaging DSP, the TMS320C80, is one good example of a device that can help customers find new applications for existing designs. In many cases, these customers have built businesses with market potential of no more than 500 to 1,000 machines. Because of the flexibility and programmability of the 'C80, they are able to grow into new markets instead of topping out when the target market reaches saturation. Machine vision, a major application of the 'C80, is one area in which flexibility proves important to TI customers. There is very little difference, for example, in the basic technology needed to inspect the quality of a welded joint and that required to check connections on a circuit board. Likewise, there are important similarities in the imaging used by the military for sophisticated guidance systems and in the medical imaging systems. The flexibility of the 'C80 allows customers to consider serving such apparently disparate markets. Digital Signal Processing Solutions from Texas Instruments are helping designers and industrial equipment manufacturers expand their horizons as they facilitate the development of new products that all of us can use.

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