New MPU with on-chip EtherCAT communication enables accurate, real-time industrial control
Products such as robots, ac servo drives and inverters can benefit from the reliable, deterministic processing of the RZ/T2L microprocessor from Renesas, which features an 800 MHz CPU and 576 kbytes of RAM.
Renesas has introduced a new industrial microprocessor that includes an on-chip EtherCAT communication module to enable high-speed, accurate real-time control of industrial systems.
The Renesas RZ/T2L MPU shares the same hardware architecture as the RZ/T2M, a higher-end product, giving it the capacity to meet the high-speed processing requirements of products such as ac servo drives, inverters, industrial robots, collaborative robots (cobots) and other applications in which EtherCAT communication is required. At the same time, designers can achieve board space savings because the RZ/T2L’s chip size is as much as 50% smaller than that of the RZ/T2M.
The RZ/T2L is equipped with an Arm® Cortex®-R52 CPU that has a maximum operating frequency of 800 MHz alongside a proven EtherCAT slave controller for reliable Ethernet communication. A large 576 kbyte memory directly connected to the CPU reduces the unpredictability in execution time that can be caused by cache memory, and enables reliable, deterministic processing. All internal RAM is backed by error correction code to minimize data bit errors.
The RZ/T2L also offers peripheral functions that are particularly useful in industrial control systems, such as multi-protocol encoder interfaces for angle sensors, sigma-delta interfaces, and ADCs. These are arranged on a dedicated low-latency peripheral port bus directly connected to the CPU for fast and accurate responses.
The Renesas flexible software package and software development environment familiar from earlier RZ Family MPUs and RA Family microcontrollers allow engineers to make use of software assets across multiple product variants.