Fan motor drivers to simplify and accelerate appliance design

Louise Davis

ON Semiconductor has announced three new devices for driving 3- phase BLDC motors via 180 degree sinusoidal waveforms.

Designed for use in cooling fans of household appliances such as refrigerators, as well as games consoles and computing equipment, the LV8811, LV8813, and LV8814 have voltage ranges of 3.6 volts (V) to 16V, 6 to 16V, and 3.6 to 16V respectively.

These highly integrated, software-less motor drivers simplify motor control circuit design by eliminating software development time. In addition, these devices reduce acoustic noise and vibration, and enable deployment of energy efficient motor controls. They can be controlled by a single Hall sensor, reducing system costs.

Motor speed can be set by either a pulse width modulated (PWM) signal or a DC voltage. Furthermore, their lead angle can easily be adjusted.

The LV8811, the LV8813, and the LV8814 incorporate over-current, over-voltage, under-voltage, and over-temperature protection functions. Also included are locked rotor protection and auto-recovery mechanisms. Soft start-up and shutdown functionality ensures that ongoing operational stability is maintained.