Infineon Technologies Launches Highly Integrated MOTIX™ Motor Controller and Three-Phase Gate Driver

[Munich, Germany, July 6, 2022] With its many advantages, three-phase brushless DC (BLDC) motors are becoming the first choice for designing modern battery-powered motor products. However, in order to make the products ergonomic and extend the battery life, the size and weight of the products need to be reduced, which poses a huge challenge to product design. To help designers meet the needs of the end market, Infineon Technologies AG has launched the fully programmable motor controllers MOTIX™ IMD700A and IMD701A . They are packaged in a 9 x 9 mm2 64-pin VQFN package, which enables cordless power tools, gardening supplies, drones, electric bicycles and automated guided vehicles to have higher integration and power density to meet user needs.

MOTIX™ IMD700A and IMD701A

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 coprocessor 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 first-class control performance, the XMC1404 retains most of the high-end peripherals of the XMC4000 family, including PWM timers, position interface (POSIF) and serial communication modules (including CAN bus).

The motor control IC features the ability to minimize the system's electromagnetic interference 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 series controllers can power the gate driver even at low battery voltage levels, and the output voltage is adjustable. In addition, electromagnetic interference management through digital configuration of the gate driver is also an important advantage, which allows designers to optimize electromagnetic interference test equipment without changing any components on the circuit board. Moreover, both new products have a full 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 a precision power supply and current sensing amplifier, further reducing the need for peripheral circuits, thereby reducing the number of external components and saving PCB space. This not only simplifies wiring, reduces BOM cost and assembly cost, but also provides designers with the possibility of improving system packaging, helping them to cope with the design challenges of installing motor drivers in narrow cavities in such applications. In addition, due to the 6EDL7141 gate driver, the new device has higher flexibility and can configure many functions through a user-friendly GUI. The GUI can communicate data with the PC via the SPI to USB interface.

Availability

Infineon's MOTIX IMD700A and IMD701A three-phase motor controller ICs are available for order now in 64-pin VQFN packages with exposed bottom pad.