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TowerJazz and active-semi Ramping Production of a Motor Driver IC on 200V SOI

March 19, 2018 by Paul Shepard

TowerJazz today announced the ramp to production of active-semi®'s high-voltage integrated motor controller and driver PAC5232, using TowerJazz's 200V power SOI technology (TS18SOI), addressing the emerging markets of battery-operated power and garden tools.  The TS18SOI process offers a superior isolation scheme, enabling integration of multiple circuits, at a smaller footprint while supporting voltages up to 200V.

The PAC5232 is a Power Application Controller (PAC) product that is optimized for high-speed motor control and driving. The PAC5232 integrates a 50MHz ARM Cortex® -M0 32-bit microcontroller core with a highly-configurable power manager, Active-Semi's proprietary and patent-pending Configurable Analog Front-End™ (CAFÉ) and Application Specific Power Drivers™ (ASPDs) to form the most compact microcontroller-based power and motor control solution available.

The PAC5232 microcontroller features 32kB of embedded FLASH and 8kB of SRAM memory, a 1MSPS analog-to-digital converter (ADC) with programmable auto-sequencer, 3.3V/5V IO, flexible clock control system, pwm and general-purpose timers and several serial communications interfaces. The Configurable Power Manager (CPM) provides "all-in-one" efficient power management solution for multiple types of power sources.

It features a configurable high-voltage switching supply controller capable of operating a buck converter, a configurable medium-voltage switching regulator, and four linear regulated voltage supplies. The ASPDs are 180V power drivers designed for half bridge, H-bridge, 3-phase, and general purpose driving.

Features of the PAC5232 include:

  • Fully-programmable ARM® Cortex® M0 32-bit MCU
  • Programmable over-current protection for motor drive stage
  • Integrated 160V dc-dc buck controller
  • 3 Integrated 180V/2A high-side gate drivers
  • 3 Integrated 2A low-side gate drivers
  • Integrated PGA (3 differential, 4 single-ended)
  • Integrated DACs and comparators
  • UART, I2C and SPI serial interfaces
  • Minimal external components
  • Extremely low Iq total hibernate mode
  • 8x8mm, 51-pin QFN

The CAFE comprises differential programmable gain amplifiers, single-ended programmable gain amplifiers, comparators, digital-to-analog converters, and I/Os for programmable and interconnectible signal sampling, feedback amplification, and sensor monitoring of multiple analog input signals.

TowerJazz's 200V SOI platform provides superior performance such as significant die size reduction with deep trench isolation, enabling up to 50% area reduction compared to junction isolation in a standard foundry offering. It also provides very high voltage support exceeding the 80V common junction isolation capabilities, and high immunity to ESD/EMC and latch up which simplifies the design for first time success.

The 200V SOI platform offers negative voltages operation down to minus 200V compared to minus 60V in bulk technologies, and in addition, offers low leakage at high temperatures versus junction isolation as well as fast switching capabilities (tens of voltages per nanosecond).

TowerJazz's TS18SOI platform can be used for a broad range of analog and high voltage applications such as motor drivers, home and industrial appliances, battery operated power tools, battery management systems, electric vehicles (EVs), ultra-fast GaN drivers, industrial motor controllers, and many more. This platform is also well-suited to address the automotive high voltage requirements (about 100V) for applications such as motor drivers, dc-dc converters, battery management and more.

"We chose TowerJazz's 200V SOI process due to their manufacturing quality and flexibility to define devices needed for our design. Also, by using their process, we could further achieve an optimized smaller footprint and higher efficiency with our PAC® solution for the target high voltage battery powered market segment," said David Briggs, Vice President & General Manager, Power Solutions at active-semi® International.

"The long term and successful collaboration with active-semi® enabled a very quick ramp to production of a new part based on our best-in-class 200V power SOI technology.  This high performance and unique technology platform which offers a highly competitive feature set, is extending our offering in the emerging industrial, medical and automotive markets which are in need of very high operating voltages," said Shimon Greenberg, Vice President and General Manager of Power Management & Mixed-Signal/CMOS Business Unit.