The Future of Embedded Processors in Industrial Automation

In the vast ocean of chips, only a few can be remembered, as they are the unsung heroes behind the scenes, coupled with the rapid technological advancements under Moore’s Law. Those that leave a mark in people’s minds often resonate with the pulse of the times, fundamentally changing people’s lives or entire industries, while the era also creates some stars.

This article will explore the transformation of the industrial automation industry in China and how cost-effective processors based on ARM® are driving this evolution.

The Era of Passion

Today, China has formed a complete and independent modern industrial system. However, when China joined the WTO in 2001, embarking on a fast track to becoming the “world’s factory,” no one could have imagined what today’s “manufacturing powerhouse” would look like. At that time, the automation industry, which is the cornerstone of industrial production, was still in its infancy, with foreign capital occupying an absolute dominant position. However, keen local companies had already begun to break through from point to surface. In that fiery era, Inovance Technology Co., Ltd., which would later be hailed as the “Huawei of the industrial control circle,” was born. Starting from power supplies and gradually transforming into diversified industrial control as the demand for PLCs, HMIs, and servos in the Chinese market continued to grow.

The Future of Embedded Processors in Industrial Automation

Inovance is just one epitome of many Chinese local industrial control companies that rapidly emerged during that era. In fact, behind their success lies an important factor: taking advantage of the global transition from MCU to MPU among PLC and HMI manufacturers, they competed on the same starting line with international manufacturers. Feiling Embedded Technology Co., Ltd. began to enter the industrial control industry at that time. Yang Bo, the deputy general manager, recalled to EEWorld that from 2000 to 2010, embedded systems were still dominated by MCUs, and the ecosystem of ARM and Linux was just beginning to brew. The launch of the AM335x processor series by TI in 2011 caught the market’s attention. At a time when the industry generally adopted ARM9 and ARM11 as cores, it chose the ARM Cortex-A8, the industry’s first ARM v7 architecture processor aimed at the industrial market, and introduced a chip with dual Gigabit Ethernet configuration for the first time in the industrial field. The types and quantities of other commonly used interfaces far exceeded those of competitors, while cleverly utilizing pin multiplexing technology to achieve high cost-effectiveness. In fields such as PLCs and HMIs, the AM335x processor has helped many Chinese companies achieve leaps in development.

The Birth of a Processor

Chen Zhu from the National Quantum Communication Network Company is a staunch supporter of the BeagleBone® Black community, which is based on the AM335x processor development platform. There was a time when a third-party partner of TI came to show him a development example, only to be schooled by him, as it was content he had previously published on the EEWorld forum. He has been hoping for a more powerful successor to the AM335X in recent years, as the industrial market has undergone many new changes, and Chinese manufacturing is naturally moving towards a stage of high-quality development, which demands higher standards for industrial automation.

Firstly, concepts such as Industry 4.0, Industrial Internet of Things, and robotics are emerging one after another. New technologies such as high-speed real-time Ethernet communication, more complex motion control, 5G, and edge AI are rapidly spreading into the industrial market, especially edge AI, which is disrupting the technological development direction of HMIs with applications ranging from voice recognition to gesture recognition and facial recognition. Secondly, the demand for reliability is increasing. Compared to other markets, the industrial market must always prioritize reliability and stability. Thirdly, there is a demand for higher integration. The industrial site always pursues smaller system sizes to optimize space, and achieving this goal through more system integration is the best approach. For example, current HMIs are increasingly tightly coupled with PLCs, and higher integration also helps reduce overall costs.

Originally, industrial customers generally would not change system architectures to pursue stability. However, these changes have forced them to accept more new technologies, either actively or passively, prompting processor manufacturers to seek change. In 2019, Yang Bo received a visit from Steven Liu, the general MPU market manager at TI, who revealed that TI was preparing to launch a new product, AM62X, aimed at the future industrial market, and wanted to hear Feiling’s suggestions on the new product’s specifications and functions. After proposing many ideas, Feiling specifically suggested that the GPMC interface should be retained, as it facilitates direct connections with FPGAs and DSPs, allowing it to easily cover more industrial fields such as motor control and field collection.

In fact, the definition process is the primary factor that determines whether a chip can succeed. Boldly proposing theories and carefully verifying them is an essential process in chip definition. Meeting as many customer needs as possible at the lowest possible cost requires a deep understanding of the market and users. For example, for the human-machine interaction display interface, AM62x retains the RGB 888 interface, which is uncommon in other competing products. This interface is primarily designed for low-cost displays, catering to the needs of customers in Asia. Beyond low-cost interfaces, the industry has also considered the demand for dual-display, which is evolving from high-end to mid-low end. AM62x hopes to support dual displays to help customers achieve more innovations, such as dual-screen advertising systems for charging piles and virtual keyboards for robots.

In fact, the demand research for AM62x encompasses customers from several vertical industrial sectors worldwide, including power electronics, instrumentation, home appliances, and factory automation. Through continuous collaboration with Chinese customers, TI has obtained a wealth of first-hand information that has influenced the definition and development of the AM62x new product: for instance, users hope for more comprehensive software ecosystem support, lower power consumption, and higher system cost-effectiveness.

Power consumption and pricing are the main constraints during the product definition phase, which requires repeated communication and trade-offs with customers. Ultimately, the AM62x is priced starting at $5, which is at least 30% lower than competitors, while its power consumption is also reduced by 30%.

Born for the Future

In June 2022, when the AM62x was finally launched, we saw that TI achieved more interface support at low costs, which also gave the product better differentiation. Zhu Ya, the general manager of Guangzhou Chuanglong Electronic Technology Co., Ltd., told EEWorld: “The peripheral interfaces of AM62x are more in line with the needs of industrial customers, such as multiple Gigabit Ethernet ports, multiple UARTs, and multiple CANs. Among them, GPMC can achieve high-speed communication (up to 100MB/s) with low-cost FPGAs, which is difficult for other competitors to achieve.”

In terms of the most crucial core architecture of the processor, AM62x has chosen a 1/2/4 core Cortex-A53 as its main processor. Its Cortex-A + Cortex-M heterogeneous CPU architecture has been praised by Yang Bo: “Heterogeneity is not a new concept, but in terms of the master-slave relationship of heterogeneity, previous products have always started with Cortex-A as the main core, while AM62x offers flexibility in choosing which core to start first.” In fact, TI has always been at the forefront of the industry in embedded heterogeneous multi-core technology, adeptly handling ARM + DSP, ARM + MCU, multi-core ARM, multi-core DSP, etc. “Since heterogeneous multi-core processors are very suitable for applications in industrial automation, instrumentation, energy power, communications, and medical industries, this differentiation also makes TI processors the first choice for users in the industrial field,” Zhu Ya stated.

In terms of security, AM62x supports secure boot functionality without the need for additional security chips. Steven Liu indicated that although Chinese customers currently do not have a high demand for security, this technological reserve can easily meet their encryption needs in the future. In the future industrial market, it is foreseeable that users will face a series of more challenges, with unified platforms, complete ecosystems, and simplified system designs becoming the three essential elements of industrial control systems. If the AM335x from ten years ago initially possessed these traits, then the AM62x today has engraved these three elements into its product DNA.

Firstly, as the forms of industrial control products become increasingly diversified and segmented, a complete processor platform is needed to cover as many customers and industries as possible, thereby reducing learning costs, development costs, software reuse costs, and even inventory costs. To this end, TI has achieved software architecture unification through a complete and 100% compatible SDK, thereby simplifying the product development process. By providing unified support for the underlying Linux, customers do not need to maintain Linux themselves, and software developed based on AM335x can also be easily migrated to the new platform.

Secondly, the ecosystem is the second key issue for users to consider. With the continuous improvement of performance and functionality of general MPUs, a richer and more complete ecosystem is needed. This includes not only hardware ecosystems but also more software ecosystems; it requires support from various operating systems and middleware. In response, TI’s solution is to actively connect with third-party software companies or ecosystem platforms, including AI algorithm companies, middleware suppliers, and established software and hardware ecosystems such as ARM, Android, Linux, and Khronos. AM62x’s SOM collaboration has also achieved outstanding results. In June 2022, Feiling and partners like Chuanglong were invited by TI to appear at the embedded world exhibition, showcasing to the world.

Thirdly, in response to challenges at the system design level, TI’s main approach is to minimize power consumption and increase system integration. There have been industrial users who had to choose higher-temperature-rated automotive-grade products due to difficulties in optimizing system power consumption, which also increased the need for heat sinks. AM62x optimizes power consumption through low core voltage, multiple working modes, and 16nm processes, making the system more compact. According to Steven Liu, the power consumption of the quad-core AM62x is only equivalent to that of competitors’ dual-core processors. According to TI’s actual test results, AM62x can achieve up to 1000 hours of battery life in deep sleep mode, bringing more possibilities for industrial applications.

The Next Ten Years for AM62x

As TI’s cost-effective processor platform for the future, AM62x not only carries the mission of reshaping the industrial control market but also embodies TI’s determination and confidence to reshape the embedded field. The success of AM335x lies in its accurate grasp of the industrial market’s needs over the past ten years. Will the emergence of AM62x once again prove TI’s understanding and grasp of the industrial market?

Although AM62x has its differentiating features in terms of definition, ecosystem, and pricing compared to competitors’ products, it cannot be denied that with the continuous expansion of the Arm ecosystem and the industrial market’s boundaries, both foreign and local manufacturers, including startups, are beginning to enter this field. This certainly brings considerable pressure to traditional industrial chip suppliers, especially for some industrial applications where the requirements for reliability, real-time performance, and power consumption are not stringent.

However, in the evolution process from an industrial power to an industrial powerhouse, the vast majority of industry customers will always demand higher quality, higher cost-effectiveness, and more stable supply products. Regardless of the competitive landscape, the future of the sufficiently large industrial control market, along with customers’ ambitious upgrade needs, presents infinite opportunities for each company. In fact, for chips, which are the cornerstone of the industrial and all technology industries, the key to success lies in the ability to translate the advanced nature of process and technology into market advancement and high cost-effectiveness.

Like many former enthusiasts of AM335x, Chen Zhu is full of expectations for AM62x. Rather than saying he is looking forward to a new product, it is more accurate to say he is anticipating a possibility, a possibility that allows him to freely express himself in the future industrial market. What chip manufacturers need to do is to capture the hearts of thousands of Chen Zhus.

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