TOKYO — (BUSINESS WIRE) — September 19, 2016 — Toshiba Corporation's (TOKYO:6502) Storage & Electronic Devices Solutions Company today announced that it has developed a new group of microcontrollers, "M4K group" that allow a single-chip with a low pin-count (32 to 64 pins) to control multiple motors. The MK4 group is the second offering in Toshiba’s TXZ™ family of high-speed, low power consumption microcontrollers that incorporate the ARM^® Cortex^®-M core, and sample shipments of 13 products will start in October.

As energy saving regulations are gradually tightened and products continue to be miniaturized, demand is increasing for microcontrollers (MCUs) with low pin-count that can efficiently control multiple motors.

The new products meet requirements for the motor control systems of home appliances, such as air-conditioners, and are based on the ARM^® Cortex^®-M4F, which incorporates a floating point processing unit. Integrated features include a high-precision AD convertor with a 0.5 μs conversion speed, high-speed Flash memory with 80 MHz operation, and a co-processor for Toshiba’s original vector engine. Together, they ensure the new products realize efficient motor control while improving the power factor and system control.

The new products support the RAMScope interface, which can confirm parameters in real time without stopping motors, by loading parameters relevant to motor control to RAM. A self-diagnostic function that confirms the reference voltage of the AD convertor, and a CRC arithmetic circuit that detects incorrect detection for every read operation of the memory are also incorporated and contribute to load mitigation of the software process required for functional safety^[1].