SAN JOSE, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–2 Aug 2022–
Power Integrations (NASDAQ: POWI), the leader in high-voltage integrated circuits (ICs) for energy-efficient power conversion, today unveiled new control software for three-phase BLDC motor drives. Combined with Power Integrations’ BridgeSwitch™ integrated half-bridge motor driver and the easy-to-use Motor-Expert™ configuration and diagnostics tool, this complete hardware software solution enables 98.2 percent efficiency, reduces board space by more than 70 percent and requires only three components for current feedback circuitry , compared to 30 components in a discrete solution. The solution is ideal for household and commercial appliances with three-phase motors, such as air conditioning fans, high speed hair dryers, refrigerator compressors, extractor fans and water pumps.
Power Integrations Bundles New Three-Phase BLDC Control Software in Motor-Expert Suite for BridgeSwitch IC Family (Image: Business Wire)
“Traditional three-shunt field-oriented control (FOC) solutions require expensive and bulky operational amplifiers (op-amps) and matching circuitry for motor current signal conditioning,” said Cristian Ionescu-Catrina, senior product marketing manager for Power Integrations. “Our BridgeSwitch integrated half-bridge ICs provide lossless current feedback for the positive half cycle, and our three-phase FOC software reconstructs the negative half-cycle current information from data present in the other phase current signals. This eliminates the need for expensive and inefficient external current sensing resistors, op-amps and matching circuitry and the associated complexity.”
Power Integrations’ new software adds three-phase FOC to the existing single-phase code library. It allows real-time adjustment of engine speed and torque through the Engine-Expert graphical user interface (GUI). The code runs on any Arm ® Cortex ® -M0 at 48 MHz and does not require a hardware accelerator block. It can also be ported to other equivalent MCUs. The current modeling algorithm is robust and reliable and has withstood extensive static and dynamic test conditions, including low latency response to real-time events. The high degree of current accuracy ensures low jitter performance. The new code is MISRA C-compliant (Motor Industry Software Reliability Association), portable, modular and allows the user to modify all software layers.
How three-phase motor control works with BridgeSwitch ICs
Power Integrations’ BridgeSwitch ICs provide a motor current output signal that maps the current flowing through the low-side FREDFET. An internal sense FET provides lossless current sensing. The sensing circuit cannot provide actual information when the antiparallel body diode conducts during commutation. Built-in gain amplification allows direct connection of the current phase signal to the ADC input of the microcontroller. The local sensing circuit provides an accurate current analog with a high signal-to-noise ratio and a correspondingly high degree of accuracy. The new software includes a reconstruction algorithm that uses the phase-shifted trigonometric relationship between current signals from all three phases to accurately derive negative phase current information.
Updated Motor-Expert Design Tool
Motor-Expert 2.0 is Power Integrations’ easy-to-use configuration and diagnostics tool for the BridgeSwitch IC family. It provides a GUI that allows easy manipulation of input parameters, as well as a terminal emulator for interacting with the motor controller in serial mode. In addition, a motion scope function displays linear graphs of key controller variables that can be viewed in real time.
Ionescu-Catrina adds: “Precise control, tuning and optimization can take months of software development. Power Integrations created Motor-Expert 2.0 with the needs of the design engineer in mind. The new tool reduces the cost and complexity of BLDC drive design and works together with the newly released three-phase motor control software and reference design DER-964 to provide a complete tool for motor drive development.”
Motor and application tuning is performed through the Motor-Expert 2.0 GUI, updating control loop coefficients in real time without the need to recompile the code. The interface also allows users to visualize system operation and display the status of data, including flow, speed, status, current error and speed error. A diagnostic field within the software interface provides insight into the operation of the drive and motor.
Motor-Expert 2.0 supports the design of three-phase and single-phase motor drives and replaces the previous version of Motor-Expert.
A new reference design for three-phase inverters with three BridgeSwitch integrated half-bridge ICs, DER-964, delivers up to 300W of output power without the need for a heat sink. It removes the shunts and op-amps seen in conventional feedback measurements and is suitable for a wide variety of applications such as compressors, extractor hoods, domestic and commercial fans and pumps. The design is 98.2% efficient, occupies a 65mm x 50mm PCB and can be used with any Cortex-M0 or equivalent microcontroller.
The complete software solution BridgeSwitch, Motor-Expert 2.0 and three-phase motor control is available today and includes a downloadable guide to the software architecture, APIs, functions, calls and variables used in the code.
The new three-phase motor control code and Motor-Expert 2.0 tool are offered as part of the Motor-Expert Suite under a free license for use with BridgeSwitch ICs. BridgeSwitch ICs are priced from $1.69 in quantities of 10,000 units of the chipset. For more information, contact a Power Integrations representative.
Power Integrations, Inc. is a leading innovator in semiconductor technologies for high voltage power conversion. The company’s products are important building blocks in the clean energy ecosystem, enabling the generation of renewable energy, as well as the efficient transmission and consumption of power in applications ranging from milliwatts to megawatts. For more information, visit www.power.com.
Power Integrations, power.com, the Power Integrations logo, Motor-Expert and BridgeSwitch are trademarks or registered trademarks of Power Integrations, Inc. Arm and Cortex are registered trademarks of Arm Limited (or its subsidiaries) in the US and/or elsewhere. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
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SOURCE: Power Integrations
Copyright Business Wire 2022.
PUB: 08/02/2022 19:00/DISC: 08/02/2022 19:02
Copyright Business Wire 2022.
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