This design guide demonstrates a 600-W power stage for driving a three-phase brushless DC motor in cordless tools operating from a 5-cell Li-ion battery with a voltage up to 21 V. The design is a 60-mm × 60-mm compact drive, bringing 33-A_RMS continuous current at 20-kHz switching frequency. A heat sink is not used, only natural convection, and the design uses sensor-based trapezoidal control. The design shows MOSFET operation within the safe operating area using enhanced protections including MOSFET overcurrent and shoot-through protection using VDS monitoring, switching voltage spike optimization with slew rate control and overtemperature protection