There are many products among household appliances that require a built-in motor drive feature, such as fans, air conditioners, refrigerators and washing machines. When these appliances are combined with intelligent power modules, both motor efficiency and product stability can be improved.
A Complete IPM Product Line that Offers a Variety of Options
Intelligent power modules (IPMs) are advanced power switch devices integrated with logic, control, detection and protection circuits for ease of use. IPMs not only reduce system size and development time, but also significantly enhance system reliability, in line with the development of today’s power devices – modular, composite, and power integrated circuits (PICs), and are thus increasingly widely used in the field of power electronics.
IPMs are composed of high-speed, low-power insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) chips and preferred gate drive and protection circuits. An IGBT is the composite of a giant transistor (GTR) and a MOSFET, which drives the GTR, so an IGBT has the advantages of both. The IPM built-in drive and protection circuits make system hardware circuits simple and reliable, reducing system development time and improving self-protection against faults. The protection circuit achieves control voltage under-voltage protection, overheat protection, overcurrent protection and short circuit protection.
Fairchild Semiconductor was acquired by ON Semiconductor in 2016, making ON Semiconductor's IPM product line more complete. Fairchild Semiconductor's Motion SPM® 8 Series is designed to provide minimal packaging and low power consumption for better reliability. By applying the new 600V gate drive high-voltage integrated circuit (HVIC), it is made using IGBT, the new and advanced silicon technology. Compared with existing discrete solutions, the Motion SPM 8 ®Series achieves smaller board size and higher reliability. Its target applications include inverter motor drivers for low power motor drivers, such as fans, pumps, refrigerators and washing machines. A temperature sensing feature is implemented in the drive IC, improving system reliability. The temperature sensing of the drive IC is used to monitor the module temperature and provide necessary protection against over temperature. Most customers need to know the exact temperature of the power chip, since it may affect product quality, reliability, and life. The temperature sensing feature of the Motion SPM 8 ®Series makes it easy to measure the internal temperature of the module. In addition, a bootstrap circuit is also integrated into the high-side IGBT driver.
The new FNB81060T3 is an intelligent power module in the Motion SPM 8 ®Series that provides fully-featured, high-performance inverter output stage for AC induction, brushless DC (BLDC) motor and permanent magnet synchronous motor (PMSM). These modules integrate the optimized gate drive of the built-in IGBTs to provide minimized electromagnetic interference (EMI) and loss, as well as multiple module protection features including under-voltage lockout, interlock, overcurrent shutdown, drive IC thermal monitoring, and fault reporting. The built-in high-speed HVIC requires only a single supply voltage and translates the incoming logic-level gate inputs to the high-voltage, high-current drive signals required to properly drive the module's robust IGBTs with short-circuit protection. Separate negative IGBT terminals are available for each phase to support the widest variety of control algorithms.
The UL certified FNB81060T3 supports 600V – 10A three-phase IGBT inverters and includes the control chip for gate-level drives and protection, low-loss, short-circuit-rated IGBTs, and separate open-emitter pins from low-side IGBT for three-phase current sensing. It has a high-level active interface that operates with 3.3/5 V logic and Schmitt trigger input, HVIC for gate drive, under-voltage, overcurrent and short-circuit current protection, fault output for under-voltage, overcurrent and short-circuit current protection, an interlock feature that prevents short circuits, shutdown input, and built-in HVIC temperature sensor for temperature monitoring. With an insulation rating of up to 1500 Vrms per minute, it is suitable for household appliance motion control, industrial motors, air conditioning systems and other applications.
ON Semiconductor combined with Fairchild Semiconductor's IPM product line to make its product lineup more complete, providing products ideal for industrial and consumer applications according to different power and performance requirements as well as a wide range of package sizes to meet various customer needs, worth the exploration of relevant manufacturers.
