TI’s DRV8x family of gate drivers includes industrial and automotive gate drive solutions with protection, sensing, or power management solutions. DRV8x devices include charge pump and bootstrap architectures, which are two ways of providing high-side N-type MOSFET enhancement up to 100% duty cycle. Many devices support 6x PWM input signals for motor control, but some options include 3x PWM or 1x PWM interfaces to reduce the number of PWM inputs needed from an external MCU. These devices eliminate the need for external components or control signals to create safe, simple, and robust motor drive applications. DRV8x devices range in voltages from 4.5-V to 102-V and are intended for up to 56-V systems.

Many devices includes TI’s Understanding Smart Gate Drive technology, which provides a combination of protection features and gate-drive configurability. Many features include MOSFET slew rate adjustability, closed-loop dead time, integrated gate fault protection, and strong pulldowns to prevent accidental dV/dt turn-ons. These internal gate-drive circuits allow designers to quickly and easily optimize switching losses and EMI performance by configuring gate registers through SPI commands or hardware resistors rather than redesigning a schematic. By integrating performance and protection circuitry into the chip, this not only reduces the system size and total cost but also provides enhanced flexibility, ease of use, and design simplicity when compared to discretely built or non-Smart-Gate-Drive drivers.

TI’s gate drivers include additional optional integration such as current sensing and power supplies. Integrated current sense amplifiers (CSAs) can measure the phase currents of the low-side FETs through external shunt resistors and send this information to the microcontroller as sense voltages. Select DRV8x devices offer integrated charge pumps, trickle charge pumps, LDOs, or buck regulators to supply power to microcontrollers or provide system voltage rails with exceptional efficiency and low input quiescent current. This further reduces system size and cost, and helps enable easier manufacturing sourcing.