Integrated high-voltage power stage and space-saving evaluation board from STMicroelectronics make motor drives smaller and more reliable

STMicroelectronics Launches Integrated High-Voltage Power Stage and Space-Saving Evaluation Board

Making motor drives smaller and more reliable

• Gate driver, power MOSFET, bootstrap diode and fast start protection functions are integrated into one package, saving 70% of board space

• Compact, round evaluation board accelerates fan and pump development

September 23, 2024, China - To speed up the development of compact and reliable electric fans and pumps, STMicroelectronics has launched the PWD5T60 three-phase motor driver and a ready-to-use evaluation board that supports flexible control strategies .

The PWD5T60 has an operating voltage of up to 500V, integrates a gate driver and six power MOSFET switches with an RDS(ON) of 1.38Ω, and has an excellent energy-to-area ratio . The module also has a built-in zero-drop bootstrap diode, and the entire drive circuit requires very few external components, while the board area is only 30% of the equivalent driver using discrete devices. The propagation delays of the high- and low-side MOSFET switches are accurately matched, which completely solves the distortion problem of the switching cycle and maximizes the flexibility of the operating frequency setting, which can achieve better response performance and energy efficiency.

At the same time as the new product was released, STMicroelectronics also released the EVLPWD-FAN-PUMP evaluation board, which allows developers to quickly explore the value of this driver in projects up to 100W. The evaluation board integrates the PWD5T60 driver with the STM32G0 microcontroller (MCU). The STM32G0 can handle vector control (FOC) or 6-step control algorithms to drive permanent magnet synchronous motors (PMSM) and brushless DC (BLDC) motors. The evaluation board's single-resistor or three-resistor current detection function is configurable, and the high functional integration of the PWD5T60 can achieve a compact circular circuit, making it particularly suitable for driving electric fans and electric pumps. The evaluation board is also equipped with a power stage to provide 12V and 3.3V supply voltages for the driver, and is equipped with a complete AC filter at the input.

The EVLPWD-FAN-PUMP onboard bus voltage detection function helps developers take advantage of the PWD5T60's safety design and design undervoltage lockout (UVLO) protection function for each bootstrap circuit to prevent the driver from operating in dangerous or inefficient conditions.

The PWD5T60 adopts a robust design approach, using interlock and preset default dead time methods to implement cross conduction protection function, ensuring fail-safe function can prevent breakdown current. In addition, the negative transient voltage tolerance is very good, ensuring the driver's trouble-free operation.

The PWD5T60's smart shutdown function uses a comparator to quickly start the overcurrent protection function. When a fault is detected, the output is immediately turned off. The output disable time can be set by connecting a capacitor and an optional pull-up resistor on a dedicated pin. These components do not affect the shutdown response performance, which allows product developers to optimize the disable time to allow sufficient time to clear the fault, while always ensuring that the output is immediately turned off.

The driver uses a wide 9V to 20V input supply voltage, giving developers high design flexibility, while the CMOS/TTL-compatible logic input voltage as low as 3.3V simplifies the connection between the driver and the host controller.

The PWD5T60 is available in production quantities now in a compact 12mm x 12mm VFQFPN package with a thickness of only 0.95mm.

The EVLPWD-FAN-PUMP evaluation board is now available in the STMicroelectronics eSTore online store. The plug-and-play evaluation board runs the FOC and six-step control firmware from the X-CUBE-MCSDK motor-control software development kit, which can be downloaded free of charge from the STMicroelectronics website (st.com.cn).