Freescale expands DSC portfolio for digital power and motor control

AUSTIN, USA: With global demand on the rise for greener appliances and industrial equipment, manufacturers are seeking ways to enhance energy efficiency while reducing system costs. To address these needs, Freescale has expanded its family of digital signal controllers (DSCs) that offers increased performance, a flexible set of peripherals with reduced system costs for industrial applications.

The MC56F82xx family is especially useful for digital power conversion applications such as board-mounted digital power supplies for servers, industrial and telecom power supplies and advanced motor control.

The advanced MC56F82xx family is a member of the 56800E core based family of DSCs. It combines the functionality of a microcontroller (MCU) and the processing power of a digital signal processor (DSP) with a wide set of peripherals including a high speed pulse width modulator with NanoEdge placement as well as two ultra-fast analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) to create an extremely cost-effective, powerful and versatile embedded control solution.

The MC56F82xx devices are among the fastest DSCs with embedded Flash in Freescale’s portfolio and one of the most cost-effective DSC offerings on the market.

“Developers are seeking technologies to enhance the cost effectiveness and energy efficiency of power conversion and motor control applications such as solar inverters, white goods appliances, hybrid automotive batteries and LED lighting,” said Aiden Mitchell, director of Industrial and Multi-market MCUs for Freescale. “The MC56F82xx family’s combination of price/performance, peripherals and energy efficiency allows designers to convert to digital control in order to set the pace for application innovation.”

The MC56F82xx includes up to nine enhanced flex pulse width modulation (PWM) channels, including six with NanoEdge placement, helping to enhance power conversion, functionality and accuracy. The on-chip ADCs can achieve up to 3.33 million samples per second, helping to reduce signal ripple to precisely modulate energy. The devices include an inter-modular crossbar switch that allows programmable, internal module connections between and among the peripherals and package pins.

Up to four times more energy-efficient than other available DSC offerings, the MC56F82xx devices are designed to operate at 60 MHz and up to 3.6V. The DSCs provide an array of cost-saving features that help eliminate the need for external components, reducing overall bill of material costs.