Carrier Board

TS-8820

Computer-on-Module

TS-4100

A Host of Possibilities

With a powerful FPGA at its core, the TS-8820-4100 is a robust, flexible industrial process control systems platform with a packed feature set of various electrically isolated and buffered I/O. The TS-8820-4100 design intent is to meet needs in building automation, including building access, power control, and monitoring. It is suitable for any application that needs multiple robust and optically isolated I/O. The TS-8820-4100 presents ADCs, DACs, Relays, GPIO, CAN, PWMs, Pulse counters, Thermistor-ready, RS-232, RS-485, Power over Ethernet (PoE), and more in an enclosed, DIN-mountable package. For more information, see the TS-8820-BOX product page.

The TS-4100 i.MX 6UltraLite powered system-on-module adds wireless monitoring and control to the complete TS-8820-4100 solution with its built-in WiFi and Bluetooth module as well as a 32-bit microcontroller based on the ZPU inside of the FPGA to offload CPU tasks and allow for hard real-time I/O interactions. For more information, see the TS-4100 product page.

FPGA ZPU

The TS-4100 FPGA includes a ZPU core implementation. The ZPU allows for offloading CPU tasks as well as harder real-time on I/O interactions. The ZPU is an open-source, 32-bit, stack-based CPU architecture that offers a full GCC tool suite. Inside of the TS-4100 FPGA it is given 8 kBytes of BlockRAM and has full access to all FPGA I/O. Additionally, the CPU has shared access to the ZPU BlockRAM. This allows for a larger bi-directional communication channel between the ZPU and main CPU, and can be used to reprogram the ZPU on the fly for dynamic applications.

Reliable Data Storage with TS-SILO

The TS-8820-4100 has the option to include the TS-SILO power reserve, which ensures that data will never be lost or corrupted when unexpected power interruptions occur. TS-SILO provides up to 30 seconds of operation to allow graceful system shutdown, protecting data stored on the onboard eMMC.

ADC Sampling

The TS-8820 offers 16 channels of 16-bit, simultaneous acquisition, single ended, bi-polar ADC inputs. Each can operate in ranges of -5 V to +5 V, -10 V to +10 V, and 4-20 mA. 8 of the 16 channels offer configurable pullups for Thermistor probe measurement without any external hardware.

Isolated and Buffered I/O

The ten screw terminal blocks on the front of the TS-8820-BOX are ready to connect to industrial equipment without risking damage to the computer inside the enclosure. All lines on these terminals are either opto-isolated or buffered. The buffered inputs can tolerate voltages up to 40V. The following lines are available on the screw terminals:

• Power supply input (10-30V DC)
• 8 isolated digital inputs
• 6 non-isolated inputs (40V tolerant)
• 4 isolated digital outputs
• 2 non-isolated outputs (can sink 1000mA)
• 16 ADC inputs
• 4 DAC outputs
• 2 H-bridge outputs
• 4 relays (3A at 240V AC or 5A at 30V DC)
• Isolated RS-232
• Isolated RS-485
• Isolated CAN

Each of the 14 digital inputs can act as a simple input or an edge counter. Each of the 6 outputs can act as a simple output or a PWM output at one of 8 preset frequencies. If other I/O features are needed on these lines, contact embeddedTS for custom FPGA development.

embeddedTS provides ts8820.c, an API to simplify access to DIOs, PWMs, edge counters, H-bridges, ADC, and DAC. Also provided is ts8820ctl.c, a wrapper utility that demonstrates usage of the API on the TS-4700 or TS-4800 macrocontroller running Linux. For industrial applications that are not sensitive to performance and latency, no C programming is required. Hardware features can be controlled by scripts written in perl, bash, php, or any language supported by Debian Linux, which issue calls to the ts8820ctl utility. For high-performance applications, C or C++ is recommended using the ts8820.c API.

To further the possibilities, embeddedTS can custom tailor the FPGA to suit individual application requirements with custom logic and features. For more information, contact our engineers directly.