NEC Electronics Unveils 15 New 32-bit All Flash MCUs for Inverter Control

-NEC Electronics America announced the availability of 15 new 32-bit All Flash V850E/Ix4 microcontrollers (MCU) for inverter- and motor-control applications such as air conditioners, solar-panel power systems, washing machines, dryers and factory-automation equipment.

The new products were featured as part of the "Smart Home" demonstration in NEC Electronics America's booth at the recently-held Embedded Systems Conference Boston.

NEC said that the new devices operate at 100 megahertz (MHz), offering increased performance over the previous generation MCUs (V850E/Ix3), and increased on-chip flash memory up to 480 kilobytes (KB), double the capacity of the V850E/Ix3 MCUs. Other peripheral expansion features include an on-chip USB function interface, 20 analog-to-digital converter (ADC) channels, additional operational amplifiers (op-amps) and analog comparators. These new All Flash MCUs are available in 100-pin (V850E/IG4) and 128-pin (V850E/IH4) packages.

NEC noted that reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions has become a pressing issue for the world to resolve. Due to environmental regulations and the increasing importance of energy savings, demand for eco-conscious products that make use of energy-efficient inverter control technology is expected to continue growing. In addition, next-generation eco-friendly household systems such as solar-panel power systems, electric heat pumps and fuel-cell systems are attracting increasing attention. To address these growing demands, NEC Electronics said it developed the new V850E/Ix4 MCU line with finer-grained inverter-control functionalities compared to the previous generation to enable the design of cost-effective and eco-friendly appliances.

NEC reported that principal features include:

1) Enhanced inverter timer (2 units x 6 PWM outputs per unit) with up to 100-MHz operation for higher PWM drive frequencies and higher inverter/motor control loop frequencies enable highly energy-efficient, smart appliances and factory automation equipment.

2) Enhanced CPU operating frequency of 100 MHz, for finer-grained inverter control. The new MCUs provide up to 1.5 times more performance than previous generations, in addition to offering better algorithm processing and finer-grained inverter control. Using a real-time operating system (RTOS), the new MCU devices can shorten the overall development process.

3) Up to 480 KB of embedded flash memory. With up to 480 kilobytes (KB) of flash memory, the new 32-bit MCUs can be applied to systems that require large memory capacity for their programs, such as factory automation and air conditioning equipment.

4) On-chip USB function interface (V850E/IG4-H and V50E/IH4-H). NEC Electronics' new V850E/IG4-H and V850E/IH4-H MCU devices include an on-chip USB function controller to facilitate the connection between peripheral systems and diagnostic interfaces for motor-control applications. Also provided on these devices is an external bus interface, and to support the USB interface and other data-transfer requirements, all the devices can support direct-memory access (DMA) channels.

5) Increased analog peripherals. NEC Electronics' new V850E/Ix4 MCUs integrate more analog peripherals, which are ideally suited for inverter control, including 20 ADC channels, six programmable op amps and 12 analog comparators, which offer a increase over the current generation of devices.

NEC Electronics believes these new All Flash MCUs will enable manufacturers to reduce costs and improve time to market for eco-friendly household appliances; solar panels for power generation; and compact, low-cost factory-automation equipment. The new lineup also supports NEC Electronics' strategy to develop semiconductor solutions to enable energy efficient products, and the company plans to market the devices aggressively and continue to expand its lineup of high-performance inverter-control MCUs.

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