Texas Instruments introduces the new Sitara AM2x family to redefine MCUS and increase processing power by 10 times

Texas Instruments introduces a new family of high-performance microcontrollers (MCUS) that drive real-time control, networking and intelligent analytics at the edge. With the new Sitara AM2x series MCUS, engineers can use 10 times the computing power of previous flash-based MCUS. The high-performance AM2x family closes the growing performance gap between MCUS and processors, enabling designers to push performance limits in applications such as factory automation, robotics, automotive systems, and sustainable energy management.

"Demands for industrial automation, next-generation vehicles, intelligent analytics and the Internet of everything are driving up the performance requirements of edge microcontrollers - faster and more accurate. Providing more advanced and efficient processing power for distributed systems is one of the key steps towards Industry 4.0, "said Chris Morris, senior research analyst at Omdia.

The Sitara™ AM2x MCU product family is based on a high-performance Arm® MCU core and contains single - and multi-core devices operating at speeds up to 1 GHz, with integrated dedicated peripherals and accelerators. Easy-to-use tools and software simplify the customer's evaluation process, reduce overall system design complexity and cost, and easily obtain high-performance processing power.

"Designers increasingly need to achieve higher performance at lower system costs to meet the demand for precise control, fast communication, and complex analytics. In our new Sitara MCU product family, TI seamlessly combines industry-leading processing performance, real-time control and advanced networking capabilities to enable engineers to break performance barriers in emerging applications, "said Mike Pienovi, general manager of TI's Sitara MCU product line.

Low-power MCUS with processor-level performance

The AM243x MCU is the first available AM2x family device with up to four Arm Cortex®-R5F cores operating at up to 800MHz each. This high real-time processing speed is critical in factory devices such as robots, where fast computing power along with high-speed access to the MCU's internal memory helps improve the robot's motion accuracy and speed at the same time, thereby increasing productivity. The additional processing power allows designers to further analyze features such as predictive maintenance, which reduces downtime on the plant floor. In typical applications, the AM243x device can achieve this level of performance while consuming less than 1W of effective power, enabling plant operators to extend power supply life and reduce operating costs and energy consumption.

The integrated design realizes real-time control and networking functions at the edge

The Sitara AM243x MCU integrates sensing and drive peripherals to enable low-latency real-time processing and control in factory automation, and simplifies industrial networking through communication acceleration modules. The AM243x device extends TI's support for multiple Gigabit industrial Ethernet protocols and time sensitive networks (TSN) to enable next-generation factory networks. With AM243x, engineers can support EtherNet/IP, EtherCAT, PROFINET and IO-Link master stations with certified, TI directly supplied protocol stacks to meet evolving industrial communications standards. The on-chip security features of the AM243x MCU support new encryption requirements, and integrated functional safety mechanisms, diagnostics, and accessibility features help system integrators meet the safety Integrity Level (SIL) 3 requirements of the IEC 61508 standard in their industrial designs.

Simplify high-performance design with easy-to-use tools and software

To reduce the complexity of design and development, TI created the Sitara AM243x LaunchPad™ development kit for rapid evaluation of high-performance MCUS. With the help of evaluation tools and the Sitara MCU+ software framework, developers can immediately start experiencing the AM243x MCU's precise real-time control and industrial networking capabilities out of the box. Developers also have access to application-specific reference examples, a robust ecosystem of tools and software, and an MCU+ Academy training website to simplify design and speed time to market.