MSP430FR600x/4x Ultrasonic Microcontrollers (MCUs)

Texas Instruments' MSP430FR600x/4x ultrasonic sensing and measurement SoCs are powerful, highly integrated MCUs that are optimized for water and heat meters. These MCUs offer an integrated ultrasonic sensing solution (USS) module that provides high accuracy for a wide range of flow rates. The USS module helps achieve ultra-low power metering combined with lower system cost due to maximum integration requiring very few external components. These MCUs implement a high-speed ADC-based signal acquisition followed by optimized digital signal processing using the integrated low-energy accelerator (LEA) module to deliver a high-accuracy metering solution with ultra-low power optimum for battery-powered metering applications.

The USS module includes a programmable pulse generator (PPG) and a physical interface (PHY) with a low-impedance output driver for optimum sensor excitation and accurate impendence matching to deliver the superior results for zero-flow drift (ZFD). The module also includes a programmable gain amplifier (PGA) and a high-speed 12-bit 8 Msps Sigma Delta ADC (SDHS) for accurate signal acquisition from industry-standard ultrasonic transducers.

The MSP430FR600x/4x MCUs integrate other peripherals to improve system integration for metering. These devices have a metering test interface (MTIF) module to implement pulse generation to indicate flow measured by the meter. They have an on-chip 8-mux LCD driver, an RTC, a 12-bit SAR ADC, an analog comparator, an advanced encryption accelerator (AES256), and a cyclic redundancy check (CRC) module. TI’s MSP430 ultra-low power (ULP) FRAM MCU platform combines uniquely embedded ferroelectric random access memory (FRAM) and a holistic ultra-low-power system architecture, letting system designers increase performance while lowering energy consumption. FRAM technology combines the low-energy fast writes, flexibility, and endurance of RAM with the nonvolatility of Flash.

Resources

• Blog: Smart robots coming soon to a cubicle or kitchen near you
• Application Note: How sensor data is powering AI in robotics