LP-AM243 Dual Gigabit Ethernet MCU card includes TI Sitara AM243x Cortex-R5F microcontroller

The few microcontroller boards that receive Ethernet are often limited to 10 Mbps or 100 Mbps, but the LP-AM243 LaunchPad development kit comes with two Gigabit Ethernet ports controlled by the new Texas Instruments Sitara AM243x Cortex-R5F 800 MHz microcontroller with communication industrial and security functions.

TI Sitara AM243x Cortex-R5F microcontroller

The Sitara AM243x is the first microcontroller family to be part of the larger Sitara AM2x MCU series which, much like the NXP i.MX RT crossover processors, aims to combine the advantages of traditional microcontrollers and microprocessors by exploiting the capabilities in real time of the old and the high performance of the latter, but in a way optimized for industrial communication and security.

The Sitara AM243x family consists of three single, dual or quad core processors with the following key features and specifications:

• CPU
  • AM2431 – 800 MHz single-core Cortex-R5F real-time core with 128KB
    TCM
  • AM2432 – 800 MHz dual-core Cortex-R5F real-time kernel with 64KB TCM per core
  • AM2434 – Quad-core Cortex-R5F real-time core @ 800 MHz 64KB TCM per core
  • Cache – 32 KB ICache and 32 KB DCache per R5F core with SECDED ECC on all memories
  • Single-Core Isolated Arm Cortex MCU -M4F @ 400 MHz with 256KB SRAM with SECDED ECC
• System memory
  • 2MB SRAM shared with ECC
  • Supported LPDDR4, DDR4 External Memory Types
• Storage I / F
  • 2x MultiMedia Card / Secure Digital (MMC / SD), one 4-bit for SD / SDIO, one 8-bit for eMMC
  • 1 General Purpose Memory Controller (GPMC) – 16 bit with 133 MHz clock or 32 bit with 100 MHz clock
  • 1x Flash Subsystem (FSS) that can be configured as Octal SPI (OSPI) or Quad SPI (QSPI) flash interfaces
• Networking / Communication Interfaces – 2x Gigabit Industrial Communication Subsystems (PRU_ICSSG) with optional support for Profinet IRT, Profinet
  RT, EtherNet / IP, EtherCAT, Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN) and other networking protocols
• High speed serial interfaces
  • Integrated Ethernet switch supporting up to 2 RGMII (10/100/1000) (Gigabit Ethernet) interfaces conforming to IEEE 1588, Energy Efficient Ethernet (802.3az)
  • Single-lane PCI-Express Gen2 (PCIe) controller
  • 1x USB 3.1-Gen1 (DRD) dual role device
  • 1x serializer / deserializer (SERDES) to support PCI-Express Gen2 and USB SuperSpeed ​​Gen1
• General peripherals
  • 6x I2C, 9x UART
  • 12-bit analog-to-digital converters (ADC) up to 4 MSPS
  • 8x multiplexed analog inputs
  • 7 multichannel serial peripheral interface controllers (MCSPI)
  • 3x General Purpose I / O Modules (GPIO) for up to 198 GPIOs
• Industrial peripherals
  • 9 Enhanced Pulse Width Modulator (EPWM) Modules
  • 3x Enhanced Capture Modules (ECAP)
  • 3x EQEP (Enhanced Quadrature Encoder Pulse) modules
  • 2x Modular Controller Area Network (MCAN) modules with full CAN-FD support
  • 2x Fast Serial Interface Transmitter Cores (FSI_TX)
  • 6x Fast Serial Interface Receiver Cores (FSI_RX)
• security
  • Secure boot, secure storage
  • Cryptographic acceleration – AES up to 256 bit, 3DES up to 168 bit, MD5, SHA1, up to 512 bit SHA2, DRBG with true random number generator, PKA (Public Key Accelerator) to assist RSA / ECC processing
  • Trusted runtime environment via Arm Trustzone
• Support in functional safety
• Package
  • FCBGA 441-pin 17.2 x 17.2mm package, 0.8mm pitch
  • 293 pins FC / CSP (Flip-Chip Chip Scale Package) 11 x 11 mm package, 0.5 mm pitch

Texas Instruments claims 10 times better processing performance than other solutions, given support for Gigabit Ethernet, instead of just 100Mbps in other solutions, although the high-end crossover “processor” NXP i.MX RT1170 at 1 GHz Cortex-M7 / M4 also supports two Gigabit Ethernet Interfaces with AVB and TSN support.

Gigabit Ethernet and other features make AM243x microcontrollers suitable for high-end applications such as factory automation, robotics, automotive systems and sustainable energy management. A specific use case would be predictive maintenance to reduce downtime in factories, and since power consumption is less than 1W when active, existing power resources can be extended to reduce both downtime. operating costs and energy footprint.

LP-AM243 Launchpad Development Kit

The best way to evaluate the new microcontroller is to use the LM-AM243 LaunchPad development kit with the following specifications:

Texas Instruments provides an out-of-the-box experience page with a getting started guide, reference demo, MCU SDK access for Windows and Ubuntu with examples and more resources. You can also find the datasheet and a 7410-page tech reference manual for the processor itself on the TI developer’s website.

Availability and prices

Texas Instruments says preproduction versions of the AM2431, AM2432, and AM2434 microcontrollers are now available starting at $ 6.05 for quantities of 1000 units, but when I go to the AM2431 product page, I can only find it at $ 12.97 per 1000 orders. The AM243x LaunchPad Development Kit can be purchased for $ 89 directly from the TI website.

Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 part-time, before stepping down as head of software engineering and starting writing daily news and reviews full-time later in 2011.