Atmel has more than 15 years of experience with driver ICs for DC motors, supplying products at a high-volume for a variety of common body electronic applications, including mirror control and flap control in HVACs.
Although Atmel driver ICs are equipped with a variety of types of driver stages, they all share the same protection features – short-circuit protection, temperature warning and switch off, low voltage protection and open load detection – all of which are a must for automotive electronics.
“The continuously growing Atmel driver family includes a wide variety of combinations of integrated high-side and low-side output stages, enabling designers to easily tailor solutions to their needs,” an Atmel engineering rep told Bits & Pieces.
“Our driver portfolio includes ICs for small DC motors controlled directly from the output stages. At the heart of the Atmel portfolio are motor driver system basis chips, with integrated gate drivers or pre-drivers to control separate NMOSFETs. These drivers can be used to control almost any size of NMOSFETs, for use in a broad range of applications.”
With few external components, the Atmel driver ICs with LIN communication and the Atmel AVR microcontrollers combine to create cost-efficient motor driver modules, complete with LIN functionality for harsh automotive conditions.
“In short, the Atmel motor driver family targets applications with brushed and brushless DC motors for standard temperature applications, as well as demanding high-temperature ‘under-the-hood’ applications,” the engineering rep added.
Interested in learning more about Atmel’s motor control systems? Be sure to check out our full device breakdown here.
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