Atmel Corporation has introduced a system IC said to include all functional blocks needed for a microcontroller-based dc motor system in an H-bridge configuration. Based on Atmel's 0.8 μm SMARTIS BCD-on-SOI technology, the ATA6823 is designed to control a variety of external power N-MOSFETs. It can be used with currents ranging from 1.5 A to over 100 A.
In addition to driver stages the ATA6823 includes a pin-adjustable 5 V/3.3 V voltage regulator that supplies the external microcontroller; a programmable window watchdog that works independently from the microcontroller's clock, and the same LIN transceiver IP found in Atmel's ATA6662 stand-alone LIN2.0 transceiver. Atmel believes that no other device includes all of those functions in a single package.
The ATA6823's control logic takes over timing functions normally handled by the microcontroller that are used to protect external transistors by preventing cross-conduction. The part can thus reduce programming requirements since only motor direction and PWM mode needs to be programmed.
Current consumption is less than 45 μA in sleep mode, which reduces current consumption for battery-powered systems. The ATA6823 offers undervoltage, overvoltage, short circuit, and overtemperature protection features, and it also meets automotive qualification demands for EMC, ESD, and protection against conducted interference. It can withstand transients as specified in ISO/TR 7637. Samples of the ATA6823 driver IC are available in RoHS-compatible 7 mm x 7 mm QFN32 packages. Prices start at $2.25 in 10k quantities. An application development board is available for $130.