Floating-point microcontroller doubles performance
By Robert Cravotta, Technical Editor -- EDN, March 31, 2009
Targeting the needs of high-performance applications, Texas Instruments’ TMS320C2834x Delfino controllers offer twice the floating-point performance of previous TMS320C2000 devices. The C28x core operates at 300 MHz; surrounding the core on-chip are 516 kbytes of single-cycle access RAM; a single-precision, 32-bit floating-point unit; and 65-psec-resolution PWM (pulse-width-modulation) modules. Communication peripherals include CAN (controller-area-network), I2C (inter-integrated-circuit), SPI (serial-peripheral-interface), and SCI (serial-communication-interface) controllers. The controller includes an external ADC interface with interrupt-trigger support to allow designers flexibility in choosing high-accuracy ADCs.
Two Delfino microcontrollers are now available for sampling. The TMX320C28346 superset configuration is available for prices starting at $19.70 (100). The smaller TMX320C28343 operates at 200 MHz, includes 260 kbytes of on-chip RAM, and is available for prices starting at $13.50 (100). Two modular control-card daughtercards provide development support for these devices. The daughtercards plug into TI’s evaluation and application boards, such as the renewable-energy, resonant-dc/dc, and peripheral-explorer developer’s kits. The C28346 DIM168 (TMDXDOCK28346-168) and the C28343 DIM100 (TMDXDOCK28343) experimenter’s kits are also available for $189 and $159, respectively.
