Renesas Unveils Groundbreaking Circuit to Slash CO2 Emissions at ISSCC
This week at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference in San Francisco, Renesas Electronics showcased a new circuit technology designed for motor control that aims to meet the stricter CO2 emission standards in the automotive industry.
The innovative technology is called the Intelligent Motor Timer System (IMTS). It’s a specialized circuit that can be integrated into automotive microcontrollers (MCUs) used in the latest electric vehicles (EVs) and hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs). What makes IMTS stand out is its ability to perform crucial motor control operations super quickly—in just 0.8 microseconds. That’s claimed to be the fastest in the world and way quicker than current software methods, which take ten times longer.
This speedy performance translates to better efficiency for next-gen EV motors and high-speed inverter systems. Plus, the new circuit supports the functional safety crucial for automotive powertrains.
With rising fuel efficiency demands, EVs, HEVs, and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) are now a bigger part of the automotive market. To improve their range, boosting motor control energy efficiency is key. This not only involves improving motor mechanics but also enhancing the ECUs (Electronic Control Units) that manage these motors. Next-gen ECUs need advanced functions and complex control software, which increases the processing load on the MCUs. However, these MCUs must also manage their heat output to remain reliable in hot environments, meaning they can’t just run at higher frequencies to boost performance.
To tackle this challenge, Renesas developed the IMTS. The IMTS handles the heavy-lifting for static processes like sensor data acquisition, control value calculation, and output independently of the MCU’s CPU. This reduces the CPU’s burden, freeing it up to handle more advanced motor control algorithms, which in turn can improve the energy efficiency of EVs, HEVs, and PHEVs.
Motor control involves repetitive tasks like acquiring motor current and angle values, determining control values, and generating PWM signals. When multiple motor control processes run simultaneously, they can use up to 90% of a CPU’s capacity in an MCU running at 320MHz.
By dedicating these field-oriented control tasks to the IMTS, which works closely with a dedicated motor control timer circuit, all the necessary processing is handled autonomously. This setup means the CPU is no longer tied up with these tasks, freeing it to focus on more complex and efficiency-boosting operations.
