Technical Tips | How do high-performance MCUs reshape the industry? Five major features help you easily meet challenges!

The further development of automated factories and smart cars requires advanced networking, real-time processing, edge analytics, and more advanced motor control topologies. The addition of these features has led to a rapid increase in demand for high-performance microcontrollers (MCUs) that go beyond traditional MCUs and provide processor-like functionality. This article will introduce five features of high-performance Sitara™ AM2x MCUs that help design engineers overcome current and future system challenges, as shown in the figure below.

As modern factories become more automated, the need for real-time data analysis and control is also increasing. Many traditional systems use multiple MCUs to handle these different functions. High-performance MCUs, especially those with multi-core architectures, can enable more system integration by performing data processing and real-time control functions on a single device.

Sitara AM2x MCUs integrate fast data acquisition capabilities and precise real-time control peripherals for high-speed input and processing of data. Imagine a single MCU controlling the motors of a robotic arm and integrating audio, current, and position sensing interfaces to improve the safety of robot-human collaboration, all without the assistance of other MCUs. Or an MCU with integrated audio input and voice recognition and classification to increase edge intelligence in building security systems. By implementing multiple processing capabilities on a single chip, high-performance MCUs can not only make industrial systems smarter, but also more affordable and easier to design.

Defining characteristics of MCUs include simple system design and software development. The expectations for easy-to-use hardware and software will not change with Sitara AM2x MCUs, even as MCU performance and integration become more similar to processors.

With Sitara AM2x MCUs, engineers continue to experience:

• Simple software development environments and tools (such as those based on real-time operating systems) enable cross-platform reuse, thus reducing development time and costs.

• Efficient real-time task management and a simpler power management architecture enable a more cost-effective power management solution.

• Optimized speed and low-latency functionality thanks to integrated random access memory (RAM).

Real-time sensing and response applications, such as PLCs, must deal with time constraints to ensure safe and continuous operation. This means that the system needs to be designed for the times required under worst-case scenarios. Easy-to-use software is available to help you design such systems quickly and efficiently.

Traditional MCUs have onboard nonvolatile memory, such as flash memory. However, the increasing data processing requirements in applications ranging from automated factories to autonomous driving pose challenges to memory scalability. In addition, faster central processors pose two challenges:

• System performance is completely dependent on flash memory speed and performance, especially when the system needs to read and write data in real time.

• Limited by the current process technology that can support non-volatile memory, such as 16nm.

MCU design engineers can benefit from the flexibility of external non-volatile memory architecture. With Sitara AM2x MCUs, you can meet growing memory requirements without changing the MCU or redesigning the board, enabling more flexible designs and reducing development costs. The large onboard RAM and simple software architecture of AM2x devices address the latency and performance issues of external memory.

Traditional MCUs are known for their low power consumption, and as applications move toward high-performance MCUs, reducing power consumption remains critical. Power efficiency is reflected in two aspects that designers value:

• Performance per Watt (Active Power Efficiency): Heat dissipation in excess of 2W to 3W often causes cost, weight, and footprint issues in traditional MCU systems, especially those that require active cooling measures such as heat sinks and fans. As a result, performance increases are not accompanied by proportional increases in power consumption. High-performance Sitara AM2x MCUs can support performance in excess of 5,000 DMIPS/W.

• Low-power (shutdown) modes: MCUs typically operate in a lower duty cycle environment, and given that high-performance MCUs are designed using advanced process nodes, the impact of leakage current is higher than traditional MCUs. Designers need to innovate in power gating techniques and low-power modes such as sleep, deep sleep, shutdown, real-time clock only, and input/output wake-up.

High-performance MCUs make processor-class computing performance more accessible, opening up new opportunities for designers and customer systems. MCU innovators, product designers, and consumers will all experience the benefits of high-performance MCUs as applications evolve and design engineers realize the full potential of high-performance MCUs in their systems.