The Implementation Of Step Motor Controller Based On NIOS Ⅱ

With the development and application of the semiconductor technology, the FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) appeared. Now, we can implement the function only in an IC (Integrate Circuit) which needs a lot of IC in the past. With the further development of programmable logic IC, the embedded soft core microcontroller appeared, such as the popular ALTERA Company's NIOS and XILINX Company's Microblaze. Using the embedded soft core microcontroller, we can customize the CPU and peripheral components as we need. Meanwhile, we can also utilize the rich resources for the existent CPU application system software design.The control of step motor is an essential part in the automation filed. The step motor can be controlled with many methods, such as MCU and DSP. But it is difficult for a MCU and DSP to control several step motors at the same time because of the characteristic of serial processing of normal MCU and CPUs. A mount of CPU time is always wasted.First, the background of the concept of Field Programmable Gate Array is introduced in the paper, as well as FPGA, NIOS and step motors.Second, the hardware architecture is expounded, as well as chips and function module information. Also, the design flow of a step motor controller and an enhanced asynchronized serial interface is introduced.Third, the method of customizing a 32 bit microcontroller is described in detail. The microcontroller implements standard components (such as CPU, SDRAM, FLASH, PIO),which are customized. Meanwhile, the step motor controller and the asynchronized serial bus are also attached to the Avalon bus of the CPU.Fourth, the software design method based on NIOS II is described in detail. The customized 32 Bit Microprocessor is processed. We also program computer software in PC in order to optimize the step motor parameter. We can implement the control task of the step motors by the asynchronized serial bus.Finally, the testing results of the system are presented.