New MCU embedded power IC families provide faster communications

Infineon Technologies AG has released the TLE988x and TLE989x families extending its comprehensive portfolio of MOTIX MCU embedded power ICs. The company's SoC solutions deliver a minimal footprint by incorporating a gate driver, microcontroller, communication interface, and power supply on a single chip. The new families provide higher performance and now feature CAN (FD) as the communication interface. The ICs are AEC Q-100 qualified, making them excellent for automotive brushed DC and brushless DC motor control applications in body, comfort, and thermal management applications.

"The new MOTIX MCU embedded power IC families address our customers' needs for the smallest integrated smart motor control solutions with fast and very robust on-chip CAN FD transceivers for host communication," said Andreas Doll, senior vice president and general manager Smart Power at Infineon. "The new product families additionally offer approximately 60% more processing power compared to the well-established TLE987x product family and provide functional safety and cybersecurity functions which are becoming increasingly important for oil pumps in thermal management systems in electric vehicles."

The new devices employ a B4 or B6 bridge N-channel MOSFET driver, respectively, an Arm Cortex M3 microcontroller, and a CAN (FD) controller and transceiver supporting a communication speed of 2Mbps. Customers benefit from fast and robust communication and the highest computing performance thanks to the high system frequency (60MHz) and dual flash, allowing read-while-write operation. The relevant aspects of the new products are ISO 26262 (ASIL B) compliant, and some versions have built-in cybersecurity. These features are provided in a 7mm x 7mm TQFP package with a market-leading footprint.

The MOTIX MCU TLE988x two-phase bridge driver family and the MOTIX MCU TLE989x three-phase bridge driver family include multiple devices which offer flash sizes of up to 256kB and support temperature ranges (T j max) up to 175C. In addition, the ICs feature the company's patented Adaptive MOSFET Control algorithm, compensating for the variation of MOSFET parameters in the system by automatically modifying the gate current to attain the necessary switching. This permits the system to be optimised in terms of EMI and, at the same time, power dissipation (short dead times). Adaptive MOSFET Control also allows supply chain flexibility by maintaining the same switching behaviour across variations in MOSFET production lots or differences between MOSFET suppliers.

To speed up the evaluation and design-in process, the MCU embedded power ICs are completed by a comprehensive ecosystem comprising software, evaluation boards and kits, and several simulation, configuration and visualisation tools. The company also supplies a 150W coolant pump reference design. As well as sample and demo software, the company provides a comprehensive stack of commercial software products covering automotive ASPICE-level qualified motor control libraries, including FOC algorithms.