Three-phase MOSFET gate driver simplifies BLDC design and improves efficiency
The integrated TMC6140-LA three-phase MOSFET gate driver by Trinamac Motion Control, part of Maxim Integrated, simplifies design and maximises battery life of brushless direct current (BLDC) motor drives. It integrates all three bottom shunt amplifiers to provide 30 per cent improved power efficiency, says Maxim and the reduced components – around half of that of similar solutions, says the company, simplifies the design.
The TMC6140-LA’s wide voltage range makes it suitable for servo motors, brushless motors and permanent magnet synchronous motors. The three-phase gate driver is equipped with pins to add a charge pump, statically stabilising the gate voltages of external MOSFETs in three-phase motors with up to 100A of coil current.
It is supplied in a 36-pin quad-flat no-leads (QFN) package and is designed for 0.5A or 1.0A gate driver current for 5V to 30V DC battery powered applications. One intended application is power tools, for example, where voltages can drop below 10V. The MOSFET gate driver also has Integrated current sense and diagnostics. These features are key for enabling functional safety without adding complicated circuitry or additional components to any system’s design, explained Michael Randt, founder of Trinamic Motion Control.
The TMC6140-LA is available now, and there is also the TMC6140-EVAL evaluation board and TMC6140-EVAL-KIT evaluation kit with both bridge and driver evaluation boards offered separately.
Trinamic Motion Control, now part of Maxim Integrated, specialises in motion control, transforming digital information into precise physical motion. Empowering intelligent motion by combining Maxim Integrated’s analogue power process and communications technology with Trinamic’s motion control expertise delivers ICs, modules, mechatronic systems and developer toolkits which enable software engineers to accelerate products’ time to market.
Maxim Integrated describes itself as an engineer’s engineering company. It has a broad portfolio of high-performance semiconductors, combined with tools and support, to deliver analogue solutions including efficient power, precision measurement, reliable connectivity and robust protection along with intelligent processing. Customers operate in application areas such as automotive, communications, consumer, data centre, healthcare, industrial and the IoT.
