Simplifying BLDC design, Fairchild Semiconductor seizes energy-saving business opportunities

The development and design time of brushless DC (BLDC) motors will be greatly shortened. It is an inevitable trend for brushless DC motors or permanent magnet synchronous motors (PMSM) to replace traditional general-purpose motors or AC motors. In response to this development, Fairchild Semiconductor has launched a three-phase hybrid analog and digital motor controller, and for the first time integrated a microcontroller (MCU) and an advanced motor controller (AMC) to help manufacturers shorten product design time.

Jian Wenxi, marketing manager of the brushless DC motor product line of Fairchild Semiconductor's power conversion, industrial and automotive business unit, said that the motor control solution integrating MCU and AMC can reduce customers' software burden and provide flexible design.

Jian Wenxin, marketing manager of the brushless DC motor product line of Fairchild Semiconductor's Power Conversion, Industrial and Automotive (PCIA) Division, said that as the brushless DC motor product line gradually replaces traditional AC motors, motor design engineers with only a mechanical background often encounter the dilemma of being unable to solve the electronic circuit design algorithms and software coding of electronic control components such as digital signal processors (DSPs), resulting in delays in product launch.

In view of this, Fairchild Semiconductor has launched a modular, advanced motor control library for brushless DC motors, which not only shortens software design time, but also reserves programmable system control and communication interface space for designers to add special features according to product requirements.

In addition, Fairchild Semiconductor has further innovated the motor controller architecture, using AMC with MCU to achieve dual-core parallel processing effects. This can avoid sudden system crashes and improve motor reliability.

Jian Wen-en pointed out that this is the first time that Fairchild Semiconductor has embedded a microcontroller into a motor controller. The embedded microcontroller will transmit motor control instructions to the advanced motor controller and manage the external communication interface and motor functions. The advanced motor controller is a hardware-based motor controller with an embedded processing core, angle predictor and pulse width modulation engine. It can be adjusted for various motor designs, execute algorithms such as sinusoidal wave control, field oriented control (FOC) and direct quadrature (DQ) control, and use function libraries for setting and storage.

It is worth noting that compared to the traditional AC motor with an operating efficiency of only 35%, the brushless DC motor has the energy-saving advantage of 90% operating efficiency. Therefore, in recent years, the European Union and the United States, where environmental awareness has been rising, have introduced policies to force the replacement of traditional AC motors with brushless DC motors.

Citing statistics from IMS Research, Jian Wenxin pointed out that as global awareness of energy conservation gradually rises, the proportion of major home appliances (washing machines, refrigerators, air conditioners) that switch to brushless DC motors/permanent magnet synchronous motors will double from 17.8% to 35.6% from 2010 to 2015.