Renesas launches its highest performing MPU for industrial equipment

Renesas Electronics Corp. this week launched the RZ/T2H, its highest-performance microprocessor for industrial equipment. Thanks to its powerful application processing and real-time performance, the RZ/T2H is capable of high-speed, high-precision control of industrial robot motors for up to nine axes, the company said.

As demand grows to augment scarce labor, manufacturers are deploying industrial automation such as vertically articulated robots and industrial controller equipment. Renesas claimed that the RZ/T2H microprocessor (MPU) combines all the functionality and performance needed for developing production applications.

Industrial systems traditionally required multiple MPUs or a combination of field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) to control these applications. However, the RZ/T2H MPU offers the same functionality on a single chip, said Renesas. This can reduce the number of components and save time and cost of FPGA program development.

The MPU supports a variety of network communications including Industrial Ethernet on a single chip. It targets industrial controller equipment such as programmable logic controllers (PLCs), motion controllers, distributed control systems (DCSs), and computerized numerical controls (CNCs).

“We have enjoyed outstanding market success with RZ/T2M and RZ/T2L,” said Daryl Khoo, the vice president of the Embedded Processing 1st Business Division at Renesas. “The RZ/T2H builds on that momentum, allowing our industrial customers to leverage their existing design assets while addressing even more innovative, demanding industrial motor control and Linux applications. Our customers have been particularly impressed that the RZ/T2H enables them to implement a nine-axis motor control all on just one chip.”

A global provider of microcontrollers, Renesas combines expertise in embedded processing, analog, power, and connectivity to deliver complete semiconductor solutions. The Tokyo-based company said its products accelerate time to market for automotive, industrial, infrastructure, and Internet of Things (IoT) applications.

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RZ/T2H can generate robot trajectories

The RZ/T2H is equipped with four Arm Cortex-A55 application CPUs with a maximum operating frequency of 1.2 GHz. For external memory, it supports 32-bit LPDDR4-3200 SDRAM. Two Cortex-R52 CPUs with a maximum operating frequency of 1 GHz handle the real-time processing, with each core equipped with a total of 576 KB of high-capacity tightly coupled memory (TCM).

This allows high CPU- and memory-intensive tasks such as running Linux applications, robot trajectory generation, and PLC sequence processing to be executed on a single chip. At the same time, the RZ/T2H can handle fast and precise real-time control such as motor control and Industrial Ethernet protocol processing, said Renesas.

The RZ/T2H can control up to nine axes including three-phase PWM timers, delta-sigma interfaces for measuring current values, and encoder interfaces. It supports A-format, EnDat, BiSS, Hyperface DSL, and FA-CODER.

In addition, the company placed peripheral functions for motor control  on a low-latency peripheral port (LLPP) bus of the Cortex-R52 real-time CPU core, allowing high-speed access from the CPU.

The RZ/T2H has four Ethernet ports, three Gigabit Ethernet MAC (GMAC), plus an Ethernet switch. It also supports EtherCAT, PROFINET, EtherNet/IP, OPC UA, and the next-generation Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN) standard.

The combination of these Ethernet switches and GMAC allows the MPU to support multiple Industrial Ethernet controllers and devices. Renesas said this allows the system to adapt to a wide range of controller requirements, such as upper-layer Ethernet communications.

Renesas offers specialized boards and software

The RZ/T2H comes with the Renesas Flexible Software Package (FSP), the same as all Renesas MPUs, and a Linux package that comes with long-term support. An out-of-the-box, multi-axis, motor control evaluation system is available. It includes inverter boards for driving nine-axis motors, a multi-axis motor control software package, and Motion Utility Tool (a motor control software tool).

Renesas has also included sample protocols for industrial Ethernet and software PLC packages to kick-start system development.

The company offers a “9-axis Industrial Motor Control with Ethernet” solution that combines the RZ/T2H with numerous compatible devices such as the RV1S9231A IGBT Drive Photocoupler and RV1S9353A Optically Isolated Delta-Sigma Modulator.

It said the resulting products enable compatible devices to work together to bring optimized, low-risk designs to market faster. Renesas offers more than 400 of these combinations with a wide range of products from its portfolio.

The RZ/T2H is now available. Renesas said plans to release the new RZ/N2H device, which offers the same performance as the RZ/T2H in a smaller package, in the first quarter of 2025. It said this will be suitable for industrial controller equipment such as PLCs and motion controllers.

The RZ/T2H is managed under the Product Longevity Program (PLP) for industrial equipment that requires long life cycles.