Single-chip inverters suit appliance and industrial motion control applications

The new TPD412x family of DIP26 single-chip inverters is ideal for home appliances such as refrigerators and washers as well as industrial motion control applications including pumps and fans. Increasingly these products use BLDC motors to deliver high accuracy and long-term reliability alongside efficient energy use and low levels of noise and vibration. Single-chip inverters are a vital component in reducing the component count, complexity, development time and cost of BLDC motor-based designs.

The new chips combine high- and low-side drivers with six IGBTs to supply current to the motor stator coils. Integrated fast recovery bootstrap diodes reduce component count and cost, while additional on-board functions include protection against overtemperature, overcurrent and undervoltage conditions. Three members of the family also incorporate PWM circuitry and three-phase distribution logic in the same DIP26 package.



Toshiba’s new single-chip inverter line-up features devices with output voltages of 250V and 500V. The 250V inverters offer a 1A output current, while the 500V versions are available with output currents of 1A, 2A or 3A. All of the inverters can interface directly with a host microprocessor.

Toshiba has used silicon on insulator (SOI) technology and a trench isolation structure to bring together low and high voltage circuits in a reliable monolithic device measuring just 32 x 13mm. At 3.8mm (max), package thickness is 27% lower than existing HZIP23 packages, while improved thermal resistance reduces requirements for external cooling.



Toshiba’s six-input 500V/2A and 500V/3A single-chip inverters are in mass production now. Additional devices including versions for sensor-less motor control will join the line-up during the course of the year. In addition to the devices themselves, Toshiba is also developing evaluation boards to allow designers to quickly and easily assess inverter performance in target applications.