TMC429 DATASHEET (v. 1.03/ November 5, 2010) - preliminary - 3
Copyright © 2010, TRINAMIC Motion Control GmbH & Co. KG
2 TMC429 vs. TMC428
The TMC429 is the 100% functional compatible and pin compatible successor of the TMC428. The
TMC429 can be used as a TMC428 in existing hardware / software environments. There are some
additional functions of the TMC429 that are mapped in register address ranges that where indicated
reserverd addresses for later versions. Without access to these additional registers of the TMC429, the
TMC429 behaves identically as a TMC428. The TMC429 has a step/direction interface that perfect fits
to the TRINAMIC stepper motor driver family TMC260, TMC261, and TMC262. The TMC428 can be
clocked up to 16MHz where the TMC429 can be clocked with up to 32MHz. Registers, that are
available for the TMC429 only are labled with _429 (e.g. register if_configuration_429). The additional
TMC429 registers are described in sections 10.4, 10.5, 10.6,10.7, 10.9 and their sub-sections.
3 General Description
The TMC429 is a miniaturized high performance stepper motor controller with a unique price /
performance ratio for both, high volume automotive and for demanding industrial motion control
applications. Once initialized, the TMC429 controls up to three 2-phase stepper motors. Its low price
makes it attractive also for applications, where only one or two stepper motors have to be controlled
simultaneously.
The TMC429 performs all real time critical tasks autonomously. Thus a low cost microcontroller is
sufficient to perform the tasks of initialization, application specific interfacing, and to specify target
positions and velocities. The TMC429 allows on-the-fly change of all motion target parameters also
during motion. Any other parameter may be changed at any time– also during motion –which does not
make sense in any case, but this uniform access to any TMC429 register simplifies application
programming. Read-back option for all internal registers simplifies programming. With its internal
position counters, the TMC429 can perform up to 2
23
steps respectively micro steps fully independent
from the microcontroller. The step resolution– individually programmable for each stepper motor –
ranges from full step (1 ‘’micro step’’ is one full step), half step (2 ‘’micro steps’’ per full step), up to 6
bit micro stepping (64 micro steps per full step) for precise positioning and noiseless stepper motor
rotation (Table 9-8, page 29). Optionally, the micro step table– common for all motors –can be adapted
to motor characteristics to further reduce torque ripple.
The TMC429 has got serial interfaces for communication with the microcontroller and for the stepper
motor drivers. The serial interface for the microcontroller uses a fixed length of 32 bits with a simple
protocol, directly connecting to SPI
TM
interfaces. The serial interface to the stepper motor drivers is
flexibly configurable for different types– even from different vendors –with up to 64 bit length for the
SPI daisy chain. TRINAMIC smart power stepper motor drivers TMC236, TMC239 and TMC246,
TMC249 perfectly fit to the TMC429. Without additional hardware, drivers with same serial interface
polarities of chip select and clock signals may be mixed in a single chain. To mix drivers with different
serial interface polarities, additional inverters (e.g. 74HC04, 74HC14) are required. For those driver
chips without serial data output, two additional variants of the TMC429 with two additional chip select
outputs are available. The TMC429 sends data to the driver chain on demand only, which minimizes
the interface traffic and reduces the power consumption.
Hint: Unused reference switch inputs (REF1, REF2, and REF3) should be pulled to ground (Figure
3-3). With this one can connect reference switches that connect to +5V resp. +3.3V when pushed.
Concerning different reference switch configurations please refer to Figure 10-4, Figure 10-5, Figure
10-7.