Motor driver cuts material costs in automotive mechatronic applications

Melexis offers the third generation of its LIN driver for small motors aimed at automotive mechatronic applications at up to 10W, including motor-controlled flaps and valves, and small fans and pumps.

The Gen 3 MLX81330 (0.5A motor drive) and MLX81332 (1A motor drive) smart LIN drivers are based on high-voltage SOI technology to provide high levels of robustness and function density, integrating analog and digital circuitry to produce true single-chip solutions that are fully compliant with the industry-standard LIN 2.x/SAE J2602 and ISO 17987-4 specifications for LIN slave nodes.

With their ‘all-in-one’ approach to LIN slave design, the devices provide a reduced BoM, smaller PCB, simpler product design and faster assembly. For example, the MLX81332 interfaces directly with an ECU and can drive up to four phases of a motor, with a maximum current of 1A per phase, or two phases with a maximum current of 1.4A. This means it can drive a two-wire DC motor, three-wire BLDC motor or four-wire bipolar stepper motor, employing either sensored or sensorless FOC algorithms.

The embedded motor controller ICs are developed for safety applications according to ASIL-B (ISO 26262).

The smart LIN drivers are offered with software that incorporates the LIN communication stack.