Trinamic introduces world’s first motor driver SoC with integrated RISC-V Core Nov 12,2018

The term Internet of Things is deeply connected with sensors – and useless if you can’t take action on the vast amount of collected data. The reliable actuators in connected door locks, valves and heating vents provide the true value behind the “T” in IoT. With the ROCINANTE family, Trinamic announces the world’s first monolithic motor driver with an embedded RISC-V core. As single chip IoT actuator solutions, the new family forms the keystone for physical clouds.

Hamburg, 12.11.2018 – TRINAMIC Motion Control is unveiling its new family of motor drives with an embedded RISC-V core, dubbed ‘Rocinante’. Components in the new family combine Trinamic’s decades of experience in embedded motor and motion control together with the flexibility of the open RISC-V ISA microcontroller. The family is suitable to drive Stepper or BLDC motors, brushed DC-motors, and even voice-coil motors found in rapidly growing markets like service robots, home and office automation, light electric vehicles and power tools.

At the core of any embedded motor-controlling system is a microcontroller, running the application layer, providing a user interface or executing bus protocols. Trinamic has a long history as a leading provider of motor drivers and remains the only European manufacturer of dedicated motion control ICs. As a total solutions provider, Trinamic draws upon decades of experience providing embedded board-level microcontrollers. The single chip solution enables miniaturized and highly embedded standalone devices.

Actuators, motors and mechanical components typically have a much longer product lifetime than e.g. user interfaces or protocols, so the longevity of the components is crucial for device manufacturers. RISC-V is the perfect platform for long product lifetimes: the RISC-V ISA is stable and battle-tested, and there are no obligations or license agreements which could prohibit long-term road-mapping, development or technology transfer. Trinamic chose RISC-V as the foundation for the future of embedded motion control.

“Embedding powerful processors into motor controllers gives us a new degree of freedom and enables features that will be indispensable in the future, e.g. condition monitoring and predictive maintenance,” explains TRINAMIC CEO and founder Michael Randt. “There are companies who excel in analog, and a lot of companies doing digital ICs. There’s also mixed-signal and, even more challenging, smart power. The monolithic mixed-signal smart power IC with an embedded processor core is the full culmination thereof, offering ultimate flexibility and reliability at attractive price point.”

Trinamic is an early member of the RISCV group. The company has already successfully implemented RISC-V cores in an early stage on FPGAs, meeting the specific requirements of customers who were looking for a reliable and stable architecture for the long-term. Trinamic is committed to the idea of an open instruction set. The design uses self-developed IP in combination with carefully selected, thoroughly tested and strictly European-sourced IP blocks.

The debut members of the new component family will be a dedicated BLDC/PMSM driver with 6 integrated gate-drivers and a dedicated stepper motor and stepper servo driver with 8 integrated gate drivers. Both components share a rich set of integrated diagnostics and interfacing features. The whole family is equipped with a 32-bit RISC-V core, hardware-based field oriented control, serial interfaces, USB, CAN-FD and gate drivers for 2-phase or 3-phase motors. Integrated switching regulators allow for one-chip drive solutions. 128k EEPROM based non-volatile memory and 32k SRAM make it powerful enough to handle everything from standalone applications to high-level industrial protocols like CANopen or CANopen-FD.

The components are also the world’s first RISC-V implementation in a monolithic high voltage technology, allowing direct driving of N-channel MOSFETs controlling BLDC, stepper, brush-DC and voice-coil motors.

The family will be unveiled November 13th, 2018 at the Electronica Show in Munich (Hall B5, Booth 449). The first engineering samples, together with “Landungsbrücke” evaluation boards and comprehensive motion control and application code libraries are expected in Q1 2019.

Edit: A prototype board with the ROCINANTE chip is available for evaluation of the motor driver with integrated RISC-V processor. This board, named DOCK5, is only limited available and can be requested via Support or via your direct contact.