Spansion inherits Fujitsu with automotive microcontroller family
The first product of Spansion Traveo family is the MB9D560 series. With dual ARM Cortex-R5 cores and 2MB of embedded flash, these microcontrollers expand Spansion’s portfolio for vehicle electrification utilized in hybrid vehicles (HEV) and electrical vehicles (EV). The dual-core structure on a single chip has two interface circuits for resolver sensors for motor control, and two unique hardware peripheral units for motor control operations.
Each core has a built-in floating-point unit (FPU) which offers a performance of 1.66DMIPS/MHz, with each motor running independently but monitoring the operation of each other. If the hardware monitoring circuitry detects a conflicting and potential hazardous functions, it can bring the engine to a stop independent of the software instructions running on that microcontroller, explained Mathias Bräuer, Director Automotive MCU Marketing at Spansion. The system’s reliability is achieved with a memory protection unit, error correction code (ECC), parity error detection and correction functions.
Fig. 1: For the time being, the Traveo ecosystem focuses on motor control and includes software support from some of the most relevant players. For better resolution click here.
Over time, Spansion plans to expand the Traveo product family to open additional application fields within the car. A high position on the company’s priority list has support for graphical displays in virtual dashboards and head-up units. Also microcontrollers optimised to support innovative HMI elements such as voice recognition and gesture control can be expected soon, Bräuer said. Other automotive-related IP includes support for state-of-the-art automotive data bus systems such as CAN FD, FlexRay and Ethernet AVB. With Fujitsu’s automotive gene pool now in house, Spansion also expects synergies between its Flash memories (which are optimised for automotive requirements as well) and its microcontroller business.
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