A new industrial MPU that supports EtherCAT communication protocol

     Renesas Electronics offers a new industrial MPU that supports the EtherCAT communication protocol for high-speed, accurate real-time control of industrial systems. RZ/T2L MPU inherits the hardware architecture of its premium RZ/T2M product to provide an optimized solution for the rapidly growing EtherCAT communications market. The new MPUs provide the high speed and accurate real-time processing performance required for AC servo drivers, industrial robots, inverters, collaborative robots and more, while reducing chip size by up to 50% compared to RZ/T2M.

     The new device is ideal for FA and a wide range of applications, including medical devices and building automation, where EtherCAT is increasingly used. Hitoshi Shirakabe, vice president of Renesas Industrial Automation Business, said, "Precise real-time control is essential to improve the productivity and product quality of industrial systems." "Our RZ/T2L can make this a reality and support the rapidly expanding EtherCAT market, which will take performance to the next level and accelerate automation of factories and buildings as well as medical devices."

     "For decades, we have been committed to providing engineers with best-in-class development tools for the latest Renesas mcu and MPUs to enable their future embedded innovations," said Norbert Weiss, Managing director of Lauterbach GmbH, a leading provider of debugging and tracking tools. "Thanks to our excellent partnership with Renesas, RZ/T2L MPU's industrial customers will also have access to highly reliable tools and excellent support from the start." The device has an Arm Cortex-R52 CPU with a maximum operating frequency of 800MHz, and a proven EtherCAT slave controller, developed by Befudu Automation, for Ethernet communication.

     All of RZ/T2L's internal RAM is equipped with ECC features required for industrial applications. In addition, the large memory (576KB) directly connected to the CPU reduces the unpredictability of execution time caused by caching and allows for reliable, deterministic processing. It also provides peripheral functions, including A multi-protocol encoder interface for the Angle sensor, a Sigma-Delta interface and A/D converter.

     These are arranged on a dedicated LLPP bus connected directly to the CPU to perform fast and accurate real-time control functions. The device uses the same architecture as the company's top-end motor control MPU RZ/T2M, including the CPU, peripheral functions and internal bus to achieve the same level of performance. In addition, it offers a flexible package (FSP) and software development environment compatible with other RZ series MPUs and RA series MCUS, enabling engineers to preserve their software assets. This reduces development effort and costs, and facilitates scalable development of various products.

     The device can be used as a functional safety microprocessor to meet the increasing processing requirements and realize the functional safety of industrial equipment. The company will offer self-diagnostic software and SIL3 system packages in Q4 2023, enabling customers to reduce development efforts and the cost of developing functional security systems. It supports security functions such as secure boot, secure firmware update, JTAG authentication, unique ID, and encryption accelerator to reduce the risk of user program data leakage and tampering.