As a top event in the global electronics industry, Electronica 2016 was recently concluded. During the event, GigDevice showcased multiple GD32 MCU-based solutions and drew attention from all over the world by demonstrating its commitment to bringing evolution to smart application designs for industrial control, consumer electronics, automotive peripherals, and so on through continuous efforts in innovation and its diverse development ecosystem. Now, let me walk you through the GD32 MCU booth to learn more about these innovative technologies and application cases.
Smart Industrial Technology
Bringing digital intelligence to industrial control equipment. As the core for the industrial site real-time control application, the GD32 fully support the “Made-in-China” strategy. It is now widely applied for many industrial purposes such as advanced process control and power consumption management, smart testing and motor control, distributed networking and onsite bus, wired and wireless security connectivity, power transmission and distribution and power compensation, so that industrial control can be more efficient, convenient, and reliable. The BLDC motor control solution, recently developed by the GD32 MCU application team, allows you to learn about the development of the industrial rotary motor and the solution to robotic arm control.
The GD32F103RCT6-based main control BLDC development board directly demonstrated an application case of rotary motor control through the MCU. This board provides 24V power via a tripod power interface and DC005 2.5MM scoket. It comes with peripheral resources such as the SWD, Reset, Start, and Stop buttons, speed switch, turning switch, phase testing with/without the Hall voltage sensor, two drive methods selected through the switching jumper Short spot, hand rotation adjustable potentiometer, four-digit LED segment code display, motor interface line, and serial port; it implements such protection features as under-voltage testing and over-current testing. The switchover between its rotational speed and actual rotational speed and the selection of the clockwise or counterclockwise direction can be set through the toggle switch. The user can make the motor project design directly by reference to the source codes of the motor drive scheme.
Human-machine Interface and Video Display Technology
The human-machine interface is a window for intelligent interactions and dialog. The major screen display and touch control buttons play important roles in support of industrial manufacturing and IoT-connected home appliances. The high-performance product line in the GD32 MCU family includes the GD32F205/207 and GD32F450. While having the industry’s largest 3MB flash memory for the MCU, they enhance support for such applications as video images, LCD, memory extension, and high-speed signal collection, paving the way for human-machine interface and display technologies. The GD32F450 series is equipped with the TFT LCD controller and hardware IPA (image processing accelerator) to achieve liquid crystal drive and image overlay and to improve the image quality significantly.
The GD32F207IKT6-based main control RGB TFT LCD development board directly demonstrated onsite an application case of direct LCD screen via the TFT LCD controller based on the built-in GD32F2 series 120MHz dominant frequency MCU. The Demo board drives the 8-inch 800*600 TFT-LCD screen via RGB888, operates under the +5V system power, and provides peripheral resources such as the SW1 power switch, SWD download debug interface, and Reset button plus external extensions to 256KB SDRAM; the hardware and software integrate the DITHER feature to smooth image display. Besides, the GD32F2 and GD32F4 series come with 8-bit to 14-bit camera video interfaces, facilitating connection to the digital camera and synchronizing image collection, transmission, and display.
Key IoT Technology
The costs of smart hardware and the time to market are critical. More than 200 MCU models of the GD32 family are fully compatible and cover various applications from basic to high-end, and can help customers speed up IoT project R&D and mass-production with better cost efficiency and ease of use. The hoverboard (or electric scooter) has become a hit in the online sales at Amazon, becoming the No. 1 outdoor sports product in Amazon’s sales outlet rankings. As a hoverboard needs three MCU chips for motor control and sensor posture detection, millions of chips are shipped each month. With the potential of UAV technology expanding from consumer electronics to industry, agriculture, and logistics, the GD32 MCUs will have a prospect of more extensive applications. With the rapid popularization of house cleaning robots (sweeper robots) and the continuous launch of innovative products such as smart home and home appliances, consumer electronics products and IoT account for a considerable portion of the annual GD32 MCU shipments.
Shown at Electronica was new smart hardware such as smart lamps, networked wireless printers, and sweeper robots based on the GD32 MCU as the main controller. They all represent key technologies needed for the IoT system, namely high-performance computing technology, sensing and control technology, and wireless communication and cloud technology. The smart breathing lamp comes with multiple sensors, including various semiconductor sensors for visible light, sound wave, acceleration, gesture, and so on, which can sense the human gesture instruction to smartly control the switch and luminance. The networked wireless printer has the WIFI and Bluetooth features of wireless connectivity technology and can achieve smart control via the GD32 MCU, whether it is wireless or wired connection, communicates with the cloud, or connects to the cell phone app. The shipments of these products for such applications have been considerable this year and will continue to grow, driven by IoT technology.
Paying attention to diverse IoT applications and internetworking requirements. The GD32F450 series MCU products launched most recently in September this year were in the spotlight at this event. They have the Cortex-M4-based general-purpose MCUs with the best performance on the market that works at the highest dominant frequency of 200MHz; code execution can be done in the flash memory at high speed with no wait and the best working performance can be up to 250DMIPS – 673 points have been obtained in the CoreMark® test. They support complicated and advanced applications such as real-time control, high-performance computing, and graphic and image display. At present, 11 models are available for mass-production and shipments, with three different encapsulated chips, namely the BGA176, LQFP144, and LQFP100 as options, accommodating to diverse requirements and enhancing the penetration of such MCUs on various markets.
At this event, distributors from various countries showcased their GD32 MCU-based development boards or cards. The GD32 series MCU products integrate such characteristics as high performance, low costs, and ease of use as well as their competitive edges, becoming an ideal choice for system development and project design. At a time when IoT and smart hardware innovation are explosively growing, MCU applications will develop along the paths of high performance and low power consumption. The high-performance mobility computing requirements drive the improvement of the MCU dominant frequency and processing efficiency, while wearable and portable products promote the demands for environmental protection in batteries and power supply systems. The GD32 MCU series products will continue to go in these two directions and, fully adapting to market demands, take on the challenge in diverse usage with a leading process and high level of integration. It will keep launching industry-leading high-performance MCUs and, by achieving more extensive product coverage and better ease of use, help customers implement product design rapidly on the GD32 smart innovation platform.
Consulting
852-2759 1181 0755-86106766
