Cypress — Microcontrollers, Connectivity, and Memory: Designing for Industrial Applications and Industry 4.0 Systems

At the heart of the next industrial revolution is the need for high-performance, energy efficient, and extremely reliable microcontrollers (MCUs), connectivity, and memory solutions. With a broad portfolio of products available today, and more coming in the future, Cypress’ solutions are architected and designed to meet these requirements. This article explores three industrial applications and Cypress’ positioning in each – as well as next-generation technology Cypress is providing to solve the problems engineers will be facing in the industrial systems of tomorrow
 

IoT Sensor Nodes in Smart Factories

As factories and manufacturing plants are getting “smarter” to meet the needs of relentless cost-optimization, faster time-to-market expectations, and open-source protocols – it has become increasingly important for companies globally to evolve their infrastructures to make use of real-time sensor data within their very own factory floors. Industrial developers can achieve this new requirement by incorporating connected, small form-factor IoT Sensor Nodes across a factory floor and on manufacturing equipment. These sensor nodes allow for important data such as machine temperature, gas leaks, process cycles, and more to be collected at local points in (what will become) a “Smart” Factory and then distributed to a central beacon so that a controller can make more-informed decisions in running factory operations, emergency technical support, and more.

Cypress’ fully certified Bluetooth Module solutions and ultra-reliable Serial F-RAM Nonvolatile Memory products together are well-positioned to tackle a lot of the design challenges industrial engineers face with these IoT Sensor Nodes. Cypress’ easy-touse PSoC^® 4 MCU-based, BLE-only modules provide the ability to create custom AFEs and programmable digital interfaces for interfacing with all different types of sensors. Cypress’ Dual-Mode (BR/EDR/BLE) modules support advanced capabilities such as Bluetooth Mesh to enable these next-generation, large-scale M:M sensor networks. Both categories of modules support long-range capabilities up to 400M line-of-sight to ensure stable connections and avoid multi-path fading that is a result of busy factory environments. In addition, Cypress’ Serial F-RAM Nonvolatile Memories bring great value to Factory IoT Sensor Nodes as they provide infinite endurance and instant non-volatility. F-RAM Memories also have low-power consumption to extend the battery life of these energy-constrained devices. In fact, F-RAM consumes 200x less energy than serial EEPROM and 3,000x less energy than NOR Flash.

Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs) – Powering Industrial Processes

Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs) are essential to the success of current industrial factory systems as well as future ones. They are optimized and purpose-built to provide the necessary control logic to manufacturing operations, factory robots, and other important processes where there is zero room for error. They are also very diverse devices, with larger “brick-like” rugged form factors with a small number of inputs/outputs, to smaller, modular devices that can be networked and have thousands of inputs/outputs.

Cypress’ family of PSoC 4 Microcontrollers are uniquely qualified to bring value as a processor in a PLC design. The programmable analog and digital blocks of the PSoC 4200 and 4100 family provide flexibility and ease-of-use to interface with the various inputs/outputs that PLCs must interact with to properly provide logic control. The integration of the PSoC 4 architecture also can reduce PCB footprint and BOM cost of diverse PLC designs. As PLCs are so essential to control of industrial processes, Cypress’ F-RAM memories are the ideal choice for nonvolatile data-logging as they ensure instant data capture – thus zero data is at risk in the event of a power outage. F-RAM’s infinite endurance in terms of read/writes also is well-suited to withstand the large number of cycles that come with high-performance industrial processes.

Easily Design High-Performance Motor Control Applications

The industrial market of today has adopted a wide variety of motor control methods, with some of the most prominent being FOC (Field Oriented Control), BLDC control, and Stepper Motor Control. These techniques have numerous advantages to suit different applications, including: better speed vs. torque characteristics and high dynamic response (BLDC), increased efficiency of electric motors and smoother operation (FOC), as well as being easy to use and cost-effective (Stepper).

Cypress provides PSoC MCU and F-RAM products that are specifically positioned for the different motor control techniques that are discussed above. Cypress provides a full Motor Control Reference Design platform for developing motor control applications based on the PSoC 4200 MCU family – with an Eval Kit and ready-made example projects for: Single-shunt and Sensor-less FOC (Field Oriented Control), Sensor-ed BLDC control, Sensor-less BLDC control and Stepper Motor Control. Ensuring data is not lost is critical for both safety and cost of these high-performance motor control applications – and Cypress’ F-RAM memories can ensure peace-of-mind with instant non-volatility as well as infinite endurance.