Three-phase Brushless Motor Driver with Sine Wave Drive Announced

Phil Black - PII Editor 10/03/2016

305 1 minute read

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Motor driver IC achieves high efficiency at a wide range of rotational speeds with minimal noise and vibration

Toshiba Electronics Europe has announced a three-phase brushless motor driver IC that achieves high efficiency and minimal noise at a wide range of rotational speeds without any need for complicated phase adjustment. The TC78B016FTG is optimised for use in the small fan motors found in home appliances and industrial equipment.

There is increased demand for home appliances and industrial equipment that provide strong energy efficiency with minimal noise generation. As such the use of inverters for fan motor control is more widespread than ever. Conventionally, improving the high efficiency of existing products requires phase adjustment of the motor voltage and the motor current to each fan motor.

Maintaining high efficiency over a wide rotational speed range (from almost zero rotations per minute (rpm) at start-up to high speeds of several 1000rpm) takes time and requires many parts for phase adjustment.

This new IC makes use of Toshiba’s latest control technology, which automatically adjusts the phase of the motor voltage and the motor current. It achieves a drive equal in efficiency to an MCU control system across a wide range of rotational speeds.

Furthermore, since automatic phase adjustment is secured with a simple configuration, development times are shortened by removing the need to create software and adjust the characteristics of the MCU.

The TC78B016FTG is housed in a compact WQFN36 package, measuring just 5mm x 5mm x 0.8mm. Mass production is scheduled to commence in early 2016.