Brushless Motor Pre-Driver IC Targets Automotive EPS

Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc. (TAEC) today announced a brushless DC motor pre-driver IC for use in electric power steering (EPS) systems. The new TB9081FG was developed to be compliant with Automotive Safety Integrity Level D (ASIL D), the most rigorous measure defined within functional safety-based standard ISO26262.

The ISO26262 certification recognizes that a company's processes or products for vehicle electrical and electronic systems meet the stringent criteria specified in the standard, and provides third parties with an independent means of assessing the capabilities of a potential supplier. The TB9081FG joins a robust portfolio of brushed and brushless motor driver ICs that address a range of automotive applications, including several that meet these rigorous specifications.

"Demand for safety-critical automotive systems such as EPS continues to rise as automakers and their electronics suppliers strive to meet the requirements of ASIL D," said Deepak Mithani, senior director, Mixed-Signal Business Unit, System LSI Group at TAEC. "Toshiba is committed to ensuring that our customers have access to the safety-optimized components they need to build and integrate these advanced systems."

The new TB9081FG motor pre-driver IC integrates key main functions, including three-phase pre-driver circuits, fail-safe relay pre-driver circuits and motor current detection circuits, with a range of failure-detection circuits to build systems geared for functional safety: built-in VB over/under voltage detection, VCC over/under detection, over temperature detection, and short detection.

The diagnostic circuit in the failure-detection circuit identifies any latent faults, while the fail-safe relay pre-driver circuits drive the semiconductor relay connections between the motor and MOSFET and between the power-supply side and MOSFET. Customers can set the system to respond to detected failures by using the input setting of the serial peripheral interface to either stop the external MOSFET or switch to external control of the MOSFET using MCU.

Housed in a 12mm x 12mm x 1.6mm LQFP64 package, the TB9081FG features 11 pre-driver channels and operates at 4.5V to 18V. Voltage drop caused by cranking after idling reduction is accommodated by improving battery operation voltage range down to 4.5V. Operating temperatures for the device range from -40 to 125 degrees C. Sample shipments are under way. Mass production is scheduled to start in August 2017.