Toshiba launches SmartMCD Series gate driver ICs with embedded microcontroller

Toshiba Electronic Devices & Storage Corporation (“Toshiba”) has started volume shipments of the SmartMCD Series of gate driver^[1] ICs with embedded microcontroller (MCU). The first product, “TB9M003FG“, is suitable for sensorless control of three-phase brushless DC motors used in automotive applications, including water and oil pumps, fans and blowers.

TB9M003FG combines a microcontroller (Arm Cortex-M0), flash memory, power control functions and communications interface functions into a gate driver that controls and drives N-ch power MOSFETs for three-phase brushless DC motor drives. This integration will reduce system sizes and component counts while realizing advanced and complex motor control for a wide variety of automotive motor applications. The new product also incorporates Toshiba’s proprietary vector engine, hardware for sensorless sinewave control, reducing the load on the microcontroller, and the size of the software.

A reference design using TB9M003FG, “Motor Driving Circuit for Automotive Body Electronics Using SmartMCD,” is now available on Toshiba’s website.

The expanding market for electric vehicles (xEV) requires electrification, component integration, downsized electronic control unit (ECUs), and quieter motors. In response, the new product contributes to downsizing of ECUs by integrating a microcontroller into the gate driver, and to quieter motors by using vector control.

Note:
[1] Gate driver: A driver to drive MOSFETs