First brushed DC gate driver with adjustable current drive for scalable designs

Texas Instruments (TI) has introduced an integrated gate driver that offers adjustable gate drive settings with the flexibility to drive a wide range of external field-effect transistors (FETs), supporting multiple motors, speeds or varying loads. The DRV8701 enables designers to scale their platforms using a single gate driver across various brushed DC motor models in equipment such as white goods, household appliances, robotics, home automation, power tools, and industrial pumps and valves. With its adjustable gate drive, advanced protection features and other integrated components, the DRV8701 brushed DC gate driver allows designers to replace up to 45 discrete components with a single device to build smaller and more robust designs. Engineers can test the new gate driver in their system with the DRV8701EVM evaluation module, which also incorporates the MSP430G2553 ultra-low power microcontroller and CSD18532Q5B NexFET power MOSFET. The EVM supports up to 15A current in a compact form factor that is about the size of a business card.. The DRV8701 is available now in a 4mm x 4mm quad flat no-lead (QFN) PowerPAD package, a thermally-enhanced standard-size package designed to eliminate the need for bulky heat sinks and slugs, says the company.