Digital Signal Controllers for Motor Control Applications - dsPIC33FJ12MC - Microchip

Microchip announced the dsPIC33FJ12MC motor control Digital Signal Controller (DSC) family. The Digital Signal Controllers provide a platform for advanced motor control algorithms, such as Field-Oriented Control (FOC), enabling the next level of high performance, low noise and power efficiency to motor control applications.

Sumit Mitra, Microchip's Digital Signal Controller Division, said:

DSC-powered motor control is shifting into high gear, as new low price points, advanced motor control algorithms and small size converge to give our customers an edge in power efficiency, performance and overall cost structure…

Our approach is to create the silicon, tools and algorithms necessary to permit customers with wide-ranging motor control expertise to have access to advanced motor control technologies and to excel in their markets…

Microchip's dsPIC DSC motor controllers have dedicated hardware and software, which allows many applications to take advantage of advanced, energy-efficient motor control technology. The dsPIC33FJ12MC family enables the price-sensitive motor control applications.

Specific motor control hardware features of the dsPIC33FJ12MC family include a Motor Control PWM with two independent clock sources for advanced motor control algorithms and active power factor correction using a single DSC, and an Analog-to-Digital Converter (ADC) optimized for motor control applications. Together with the on-chip quadrature encoder interface, these hardware features provide a highly integrated, cost-effective motor control solution. The on-chip ADC and Motor Control PWM are also very useful for power-conversion and LED-lighting applications.

Key features of dsPIC33FJ12MC DSC motor controllers include:

• 40 MIPS in 6×6 mm packages
• 12 KB of Flash and 1 KB of RAM
• ADC w/ up to 6 channels, and user-selectable 10-bit or 12-bit mode (10-bit mode enables simultaneous sampling, eliminating lag time between samples)
• 1 UART, 1 SPI and 1 I2C Port

The dsPIC33FJ12MC family also features Peripheral Pin Select, which allows designers to remap digital I/O to optimize board layout-enabling smaller boards, less noise and the use of a lower pin count Digital Signal Controller.

Development Tools
Within Microchip's free MPLAB IDE, high-level resources are added in a microcontroller-friendly way to allow the utilization of DSC features with minimal effort. These features include Microchip's Visual Device Initializer, which can generate initialization code in a few clicks, and the Motor Control GUI, which can be used to quickly tune dsPIC Digital Signal Controller motor control libraries to a specific motor type-all without immersion in DSP theory.

The dsPIC33FJ12MC201 digital motor controller is available in 20-pin SOIC and SDIP packages. The dsPIC33FJ12MC202 is available in 28-pin QFN, SOIC and SDIP packages. Price starting at $1.99 each in 10K qty.

More info: Microchip dsPIC33FJ12MC Digital Signal Controllers (DSCs) for Motor Control