With the gate driver ICs for six NMOS FETs, developed by ELMOS, the individual driver outputs can be controlled with up to 60 kHz and the driver currents are adjustable from 40 mA to 300 mA. Control of the EC motor itself takes place via the power FETs of the 3 halfbridges (B6).
The charge pump applied allows duty factors for the highside drivers of up to 100%. The motor control interface between microcontroller and motor driver IC consists of six PWMs for driving the six power transistors. Particularly for use with low performance microcontrollers, the E910.87 can also be installed so that three PWMs are sufficient for driving the power stage.
Further characteristics of the device include an integrated window watchdog, integrated free run comparators and motor current measurement with programmable amplification. Features such as amplification factor of current limitation, overcurrent threshold and error interrupts can be adjusted and configured in a simple and direct manner via the integrated SPI interface.
The diverse protection functions include protection against phase and gate shortcircuits, crosscurrent protection, overvoltage and undervoltage protection for highside and lowside driver supply, gatesource voltage limitation of highside drivers and an overtemperature warning.
The EC motor driver E910.87 is designed for an extended temperature range of -40°C to +125°C and comes in a small 7x7 mm, 44pin QFN package. Samples and evaluation boards are available from Gleichmann Electronics.
Elmos Semiconductor AG
For many years, ELMOS is a leading developer and producer of customerspecific system solutions for the automotive sector as well as for consumer and industrial products. Based on the modular highvoltage CMOS technology, ELMOS offers a variety of analog, mixedsignal circuit elements such as voltage regulators, analog/digital converters, power drivers and nonvolatile memory. In addition, special siliconbased microsystems based on MEMS sensor systems and dedicated package solutions, both developed and manufactured within the ELMOS Group, are offered. About 90 percent of sales are generated with ICs for automotive electronics. ELMOS is listed on the Prime Standard of the German Stock Exchange. More information can be found at: www.elmos.de