According to a report by Electronic Enthusiasts (Author: Wu Zipeng), humanoid robots are gradually moving from the conceptual stage to large-scale implementation, leading to a significant increase in demand for chips. Whether as the “brain” and “cerebellum” core computing modules, or in perception and control systems, chips are the key foundation for realizing these system functions.
In the Electronic Enthusiasts’ special feature on “Motor Control and Sensors for Humanoid Robots,” Chen Siwei, Product Marketing Director of Gigadevice’s Microprocessor Division, stated that Gigadevice has built a rich product matrix covering GD32 MCUs, Flash, niche DRAM, and analog chips, providing full-stack support for humanoid robots, thanks to its deep technical accumulation in storage, MCU, and analog chip fields.
Chen Siwei, Product Marketing Director of Gigadevice’s Microprocessor Division
GD32 MCU Empowers Drive and Perception System Design
In humanoid robot systems, the MCU is the core of the drive and perception systems, responsible for achieving real-time, high-precision control and deep integration of multi-source data.
In terms of the drive system, the joint drive of humanoid robots relies on multi-axis servo systems, where each joint requires independent closed-loop control, involving a multi-level control architecture of current loop, speed loop, and position loop. Therefore, there is an urgent need for high-precision, high-real-time MCUs. Chen Siwei pointed out that Gigadevice provides a rich selection of MCU products for drive control and perception fusion in humanoid robots. Among them, the GD32H75E MCU adopts an advanced ARM® Cortex®-M7 core, capable of achieving an ultra-high operating frequency of 600MHz, and through a dual-issue 6-stage pipeline architecture and floating-point unit (FPU), it is particularly suitable for handling complex algorithms and real-time multi-tasking requirements in robotic motion control.
For example, with the development of humanoid robot technology, higher demands have been placed on high dynamic response, multi-axis coordination, energy efficiency, and real-time communication. To this end, the GD32H75E high-performance MCU integrates an EtherCAT slave controller and includes two built-in PHYs, along with hardware FPU/DSP acceleration, fully meeting the high dynamic servo control requirements; it also supports an EtherCAT+CAN FD dual-bus architecture, ensuring microsecond-level multi-axis synchronization, suitable for complex motion control scenarios, and supports high-speed interaction of multi-joint data, effectively reducing communication latency.
In the perception system, humanoid robots are equipped with various sensors, including visual sensors, inertial measurement units (IMUs), torque sensors, tactile sensors, position sensors, auditory sensors, temperature sensors, current sensors, and pressure sensors. The GD32H7 series focuses on key sensor technologies such as tactile, visual (e.g., ToF, RGB-D), inertial (IMU), and environmental perception (LiDAR, ultrasonic). With the ARM Cortex-M7 600MHz core, dual-precision FPU, and DSP acceleration capabilities, it can process the massive data generated by multi-source sensors in real-time, such as achieving IMU attitude calculation, optical flow computation, or filtering and denoising force feedback signals through hardware acceleration. Its large capacity storage of 4MB Flash/1MB SRAM supports multi-modal data caching, while high-speed SPI/I2C/USART interfaces and 16-bit ADC ensure low-latency acquisition of high-precision sensor data. The GD32H7 can complete multi-sensor data fusion on a single chip, providing strong support for real-time motion planning and environmental interaction of humanoid robots.
The GD32G5 series MCU is designed for comprehensive optimization solutions for robot sensing and execution systems, featuring an ARM® Cortex®-M33 core, achieving nanosecond-level real-time response with a 216MHz main frequency and a 5-stage pipeline architecture; it innovatively integrates a 4-channel 12-bit ADC (5.3MSPS) and a 4-channel 12-bit DAC (15MSPS), constructing a high-precision closed-loop signal chain that supports synchronized acquisition and precise control of multi-modal sensor data; equipped with a 16-channel high-resolution timer (145ps accuracy), it can generate ultra-high-precision PWM waveforms, supporting system-level IEC 61508 SIL2 functional safety standards, providing a complete Safety Package, including Safety Manual, FMEDA, and self-test libraries.
Additionally, the GD32E23x series MCU is deeply optimized for robot encoder systems, featuring a 72MHz Cortex®-M23 core, providing advanced processing capabilities including single-cycle multipliers and 17-cycle dividers; the GD32E23x and GD32C113x series MCUs can be applied to six-dimensional torque sensor robot joint control, temperature sensors, electronic skin, and other application scenarios.
In addition to GD32 MCUs, Gigadevice offers high-speed SPI NOR Flash GD25LX series products, with a data throughput of up to 400MB/s, capable of meeting the demands for fast code reading and program startup. Notably, Gigadevice also provides high-performance, integrated driver SOC chips GD30DRE508 series, which can be adapted for robot joint drives.
Chen Siwei emphasized that Gigadevice is committed to providing a one-stop core control system solution for humanoid robots, covering perception, computation, and storage.
Accelerating the Implementation of Humanoid Robots
From the perspective of industrial development, 2024 is expected to be a year of acceleration for humanoid robot development, while 2025 is seen as the year of commercial mass production. GGII predicts in the “2025 Humanoid Robot Industry Development Blue Book” that global humanoid robot market sales are expected to reach 12,400 units by 2025, with a market size of 6.339 billion yuan; by 2030, global humanoid robot market sales will approach 340,000 units, with a market size exceeding 64 billion yuan; by 2035, global humanoid robot market sales will exceed 5 million units, with a market size exceeding 400 billion yuan.
Chen Siwei believes that 2025 will mark a critical turning point for large-scale mass production of humanoid robots, which will drive an explosion in demand for high-precision motor control, multi-modal sensing, and edge computing chips. In the future, motor control for humanoid robots will develop towards high precision, intelligence, and integration, relying on high-performance GD32 MCUs to support advanced algorithms and real-time responses; sensing technology will trend towards multi-modal fusion and edge computing, requiring low-power, high-bandwidth chips to process multi-sensor data. At the same time, Gigadevice will leverage its rich product lines of MCUs, storage chips, etc., to enhance computing power, reduce power consumption, and simplify system design, promoting breakthroughs in core technologies for humanoid robots and their large-scale applications.
As one of the earliest chip suppliers to enter the robotics industry in China, Gigadevice, with its rich product line (covering GD32 MCUs, NOR Flash, niche DRAM, Analog products, etc.) and deep technical accumulation, has established deep cooperation with many leading robot manufacturers. “We will fully leverage our first-mover advantage, focusing on real-time control of servo drives, sensor fusion processing, and functional safety certification in three major areas, providing customers with high-cost-performance one-stop solutions through high-performance AI-accelerated MCUs and a complete algorithm ecosystem, helping the humanoid robot industry achieve rapid commercialization,” Chen Siwei concluded.
Disclaimer: This article is originally from Electronic Enthusiasts, please indicate the source above when reprinting. For group communication, please add WeChat elecfans999,for submission of interview requests, please send an email to [email protected].
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