NEC Electronics America has introduced the V850E/PHO3, a 32-bit all-flash automotive microcontroller optimized for chassis and inverter control applications that require control of one or two 3-phase brushless dc motors simultaneously. Applications include electronic power steering, electronic braking, damping and other vehicle-stability control applications.
The V850E/PHO3 is the first MCU from NEC Electronics to include an embedded FlexRay communications controller based on E-Ray intellectual property licensed from Robert Bosch GmbH. Jim Trent, associate vice president and general manager of NEC Electronics America’s automotive strategic business unit, said the MCU is suited for advanced network architectures and future x-by-wire applications.
"FlexRay technology is poised to replace the CAN protocol and become the network standard of choice in the chassis and powertrain areas," said Trent. The V850E/PHO3 MCU was the first MCU to pass the FlexRay Conformance Test administered by TUV Nord Group's Institute for Vehicle Technology and Mobility, the FlexRay Consortium's official partner for data link layer conformance testing. The certification is based on 275 tests that verify the functional behavior of an embedded FlexRay communications controller to ensure conformance with the FlexRay v2.1 specification.
The V850E/PHO3 supports the design of Safety Integrity Level 3 (SIL3)- conformant (IEC61508) engine control units that have on-chip safety diagnostics including error-correcting code in flash memory and RAM, hardware-based cyclical redundancy checks, redundant peripherals, core self-test software and a floating-point unit capable of diverse processing.
The new MCU is based on NEC Electronics' V850E CPU core, which operates at clock speeds up to 128 MHz. Its peripheral set is backward-compatible with earlier versions of the V850/PHO lineup, including the V850E/PHO2, provide a scalable solution and a smooth migration path. Memory capacities including 1 MB of embedded flash, 32 KB of flash memory for data, and 60 KB of RAM, suit the device for complex application software. Two analog-to-digital converters, 14 independent multichannel pulse-width modulator (PWM) timers and two real-time pulse units allow simultaneous control of two 3-phase brushless dc motors. A direct memory access (DMA) controller minimizes CPU load.
In addition to the FlexRay communications controller the V850E/PHO3 MCU includes two controller area network (CAN) interfaces, three local interconnect network (LIN)-UART interfaces, four clocked serial interfaces (CSIs) and a 32-bit non-multiplexing bus interface for use in advanced network architectures. The MCU is available in a 35-pin ball grid array (BGA) package. NEC Electronics also provides a ready-to-use AUTOSAR-compliant microcontroller abstraction layer (MCAL) software stack for fast design of standardized and reusable application software.