With their many advantages, three-phase brushless DC (BLDC) motors are becoming the first choice for designing modern battery-operated motor products. However, in order to make the product ergonomic and prolong the life of the battery, the size and weight of the product need to be reduced, which brings great challenges to the product design. To help designers meet end market demands, Infineon Technologies AG has introduced fully programmable motor controllers MOTIX IMD700A and IMD701A. Available in a 9 x 9 mm2 64-pin VQFN package, they enable wireless power tools, garden supplies, drones, e-bikes, and automated guided vehicles with higher levels of integration and power density to meet user needs.
The MOTIX IMD70xA family of controllers integrates the MOTIX 6EDL7141 three-phase gate driver IC and an additional XMC1404 microcontroller (MCU) in a very small package with peripherals and specifications optimized for motor control and drive. Infineon's XMC1404 MCU has a built-in MATH co-processor with a frequency of 96MHz, which can enhance the computing power commonly used in sensorless Field Oriented Control (FOC) algorithms, thereby improving system performance. In addition, to ensure best-in-class control performance, the XMC1404 retains most of the high-end peripherals found in the XMC4000 family, including PWM timers, position interface (POSIF), and serial communication modules (including CAN bus).
This motor control IC features the ability to minimize system EMI by controlling the slew rate of the gate driver. Thanks to its built-in high-side and low-side charge pumps, as well as many other adjustable gate driver parameters, the IMD70xA family of controllers can power the gate driver even at low battery voltage levels with adjustable output voltage. In addition, EMI management through the digital configuration of gate drivers is an important advantage, allowing designers to optimize EMI test equipment without changing any components on the board. Moreover, the two newly launched products are equipped with a complete set of system protection functions for motor drives, such as overcurrent protection, undervoltage lockout, overtemperature protection and locked rotor detection, which further improves the reliability and robustness of the system.
The new device integrates precision power and current sense amplifiers, further reducing the need for peripheral circuits, thereby reducing the number of external components and saving PCB space. This not only simplifies wiring, reducing BOM and assembly costs, but also offers designers the possibility to improve system packaging, helping them address the design challenges posed by the need to fit motor drivers into tight cavities in such applications . Furthermore, thanks to the 6EDL7141 gate driver, the new device offers greater flexibility and the ability to configure many functions through a user-friendly GUI. The GUI can communicate with the PC through the SPI to USB interface.
