Renesas Electronics Europe, has announced the release of the “Bill It! – Smart Meter RX21A” polyphase meter reference platform. The reference platform enables engineers to save time by eliminating the need to design their own metrology and calibration routines, required for a billing polyphase meter design, while complying with the most stringent IEC norms.
The new “Bill It! – Smart Meter RX21A” is based on Renesas’ RX21A group of microcontrollers (MCUs), integrates the metrology front end and the application processor in a single chip. The RX21A group devices are equipped with three, four or seven independent 24-bit delta-sigma analogue-digital converters (ΔΣ-ADC). They are therefore well equipped to accommodate single-phase, split-phase and three-phase plus neutral billing electricity meters respectively. The ΔΣ-ADC channels include a programmable gain amplifier (PGA), which allows the target meter to cover a dynamic range between 10mA and 100A at enhanced temperature range. By storing calibration data in the flash, the RX21A devices cover applications better than Class 0.2S, thus exceeding the most stringent IEC metering requirement presently available, the IEC62053-22.
Renesas has designed the “Bill It! – Smart Meter RX21A” for a very wide target specification, allowing for easy implementation and eventual downsizing to a billing electricity meter design tailored to the customer’s needs. The design is built and supported entirely in Europe, and fulfils all required Cenelec standards for EMC and safety.
The solution includes an intuitive PC graphical user interface (GUI), providing engineers during the design phase with all the information they need to trim and analyse the data measured by the ΔΣ-ADC channels. This covers both graphical feedback from the ADC data as well as prepared data after the calibration steps, frequency analysis and separation of active/reactive energy use.
Each kit contains the Bill It! Polyphase Meter, a CD-ROM including the embedded metrology and calibration software source code, the PC GUI, the board schematics, the bill of materials, Gerber files, user manual, quick start guide and the electrical connection setup needed to use the electricity meter.
The availability of the new RX21A kit implements the next step in Renesas strategy of being a solution provider. It does this by providing all the required components, comprising both hardware and software, to enable designers and engineers to re-use proven solutions for their target application, reduce costs and accelerate their time to market. Renesas will be launching additional kits over the coming months to continue the implementation of this strategy.
Renesas will launch the “Bill It!” kit on its stand at the European Utility Week 2014 show, which takes place in Amsterdam from November 4th to 6th (Hall 4, stand F26). The new “Bill It!” solution kit is part of a range of next generation solution kits due to be launched by Renesas at Electronica 2014 in November (Hall A6, Stand 243). With the Renesas trade fair theme ‘Connect with Tomorrow’, the kit solutions will be a central focus.
Availability
The kits are available now from customers’ local Renesas representatives. The part name is YBILL-IT-RX21ASMARTMETER.
Additional technical details are available at www.renesas.eu/rx21a.
