Analog Devices Targets Industrial Motor and Solar Inverter Designs

    Sept. 26, 2013

    September 25, 2013. Analog Devices Inc. launched today a mixed-signal control processor that integrates the industry’s only embedded dual 16-bit A/D converter with up to 14 bits of accuracy together with a 240-MHz floating-point ARM Cortex-M4 processor core. Equipment manufacturers require highly accurate, closed-loop control in servo, motor-drive, solar photo-voltaic (PV) inverter and other embedded industrial applications to improve the energy efficiency and performance of their products. The higher precision analog conversion of the ADSP-CM40x achieves these goals.

    Forty percent of the world’s electric power is consumed by electric motors, and demand for higher levels of factory automation is driving the need for greater industrial-motor power efficiency and performance.

    “Developers of industrial drives are demanding lower power consumption, less torque ripple and more precise speed control. This together with higher precision analog conversion within the closed-loop control scheme is the key enabling technology,” said Hong Wu, general manager, Googol Technology, a maker of motor drives and motion controls for Asian markets. “The ADSP-CM40x is the best processor for offering the level of mixed-signal performance required in future industrial motor drives.”

    In addition, solar PV has become the largest source of new generation capacity added to the global electricity grid—with a cumulative installation base of 100 GW—and is set to become the fastest growing source of renewable energy generation over the next decade. Increased measurement accuracy, supported by the ADSP-CM40x’s integrated high-precision converters, is driven by ever more stringent grid compliance requirements.  This coupled with faster power control loops, fueled by the emergence of GaN (gallium nitride) and SiC (silicon carbide) power switching technologies, are combining to enable significant performance and cost improvements in the next generation of solar PV inverter topologies, all enabled with the ADSP-CM40x through its powerful 240-MHz floating point processing capabilities and best-in-class analog conversion speed.

    The ADSP-CM40x series is the first of a new generation of mixed-signal control processors being developed by Analog Devices for precision control applications. In addition to its analog conversion performance and 380-ns conversion speeds, the ADSP-CM40x provides a number of other features such as a full sinc filter implementation to interface directly to isolated sigma-delta modulators (AD7400A/AD7401A) which are used in shunt-based current sensing system architectures. The availability of an on-chip sinc filter eliminates the cost and engineering resources required to implement that function in an FPGA.

    The ADSP-CM40x mixed-signal processor combined with ADI’s existing portfolio of iCoupler isolated products (gate drivers, sigma-delta converters, digital isolators and transceivers), simultaneous sampling A/D converters, resolver-to-digital converters and power-factor-correction controllers, reinforces ADI’s position as a leading provider of solutions across the entire motor control signal-chain.

    Model-Based Design Minimizes Time-to-Market by Optimizing Production Code

    Through the use of MathWorks’ ARM Cortex-M optimized Embedded Coder and tool suites, Analog Devices is further enhancing system development value by bringing designs from simulation to productized code implementation in an embedded platform. 

    “Through optimized code generation, device drivers, and compiler suites, Analog Devices’ new ADSP-CM40x series enable engineers to plug their designs directly into an environment for model-based design using MATLAB and Simulink software,  streamlining the workflow from system modeling to controller deployment to verification and certification,” said Tom Erkkinen, products manager, MathWorks. “This structure defines a complete model-based development platform, allowing engineers to focus on faster development of more efficient systems.”

    Prices start at $11.89 for engineering-grade samples. Evaluation boards start at $275 and include the Segger J-Link Lite Emulator.

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