Brushless DC (BLDC) motors are popular in industrial and automotive applications for best system efficiency, longer life and compact design. These applications use a wide range of low voltage input supplies like 5V, 12V, 24V, 36V, 48V DC in industrial and 12V, 24V, 48V in automotive applications. The recent trend of wider adaption to 48V helps in reduction of overall system cost, efficiency improvement while still enabling low-voltage architecture, minimizing safety concerns. Applications like robotics, humanoids, BLDC motor modules, and automotive systems often require integration of electronics in to the motor body for smart motor designs to reduce cabling, EMI and system design complexities.
This application note introduces TI’s latest 3-phase integrated FET BLDC driver DRV8376 (70V, 4.5A peak), and describes how DRV8376 helps to design compact BLDC drives up to 48V applications.
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Traditionally, the 4-wheeler automotive systems use 12V supply across body, ADAS, infotainment subsystems. However, the adoption of 48V is increasing, driven from improved efficiency, lower system cost, savings in copper wiring, reduction in overall size and weight and enable lower emissions while still being in the low voltage (48V) design, without the need of stringent high voltage safety requirements. The 48V supply is widely used in industrial applications like factory automation, robotics, medical, server and telecom applications. The residential and commercial Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) systems use 24V AC supply for light loads like thermostats, valves etc. These applications typically consist of Microcontroller Units (MCUs) with BLDC motor control algorithm, MOSFETs for H-bridges, gate drivers for controlling the turn-on/turn-off of the MOSFETS, sensing circuitry for real-time sensing of motor phase currents or rotor position, LDOs and system-level protection functions. These designs often need compact and precise BLDC drives to enable integration of electronics into the motor, reducing system cost and to achieve higher system efficiency.