New evaluation kit for A4915 3-phase MOSFET controller IC

3rd December 2013

Staff Reporter

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Allegro Microsystems have today announced a new product evaluation kit for helping customers during the design process for the company’s A4915 3-phase MOSFET controller IC. Consisting of a printed-circuit board containing everything required to spin and control a brushless DC (BLDC) motor, all the user has to do is provide a voltage supply and the motor itself.

Compliant to 50 V and including everything needed to spin a motor, the A4915 incorporates on-chip Hall commutation and a unique speed control input which takes an analogue voltage and generates a pulse-width-modulated (PWM) output with a variable duty cycle. This arrangement makes it possible to efficiently control a BLDC motor with little or no microprocessing power, resulting in a 75% reduction in PCB space compared with alternative solutions on the market.

Six all N-channel power MOSFETs are mounted on the evaluation kit and can supply 30 A peak and 20 A nominal run current at room temperature. The A4915 has jumpers that disable the onboard bridge and provide connections for an external bridge If larger loads are needed. The onboard 5 V regulator which creates the secondary supply for logic inputs is also featured, making operation and evalutation simple.

This new development kit is targeted at both the industrial and consumer markets with end applications to include power tools, lawn and garden equipment, pumps, ticketing and ATM machines and household appliances. The A4915 development kit is available for both the 28-pin TSSOP with an exposed thermal pad (suffix LP) and a 28-contact 5 x 5 mm QFN with an exposed thermal pad (suffix ET).