GaN Motor-Drive ICs Bring Greater Efficiency to Home Appliances and Industrial Apps
A new family of GaNSense Motor Drive ICs from Navitas Semiconductor delivers high levels of integration, efficiency, and ease of use to home appliances and industrial drives up to 600 W.
Specifically designed for motor-drive applications used in air conditioners, heat pumps, washing machines, dryers, dishwashers, refrigerators, and hair dryers, this fully integrated solution combines two gallium-nitride (GaN) FETs in a half-bridge configuration with drive, control, sensing, and autonomous protection. Compared to legacy silicon IGBT solutions, they offer up to 4% higher efficiency, 40% PCB footprint reduction, and 15% lower system cost.
The driver’s bidirectional, lossless current-sensing circuitry measures both positive and negative currents, eliminating the need for external shunt resistors. Turn-on and turn-off slew rates are fully adjustable, making it possible for designers to optimize EMI, performance, and maximize efficiency.
An autonomous freewheeling function switches on the GaN IC upon detection of reverse current to reduce conduction losses, maximize efficiency, and reduce the size and cost of heatsinks. The GaNSense Motor Drive IC family also includes several safety features, such as high- and low-side short-circuit protection, overtemperature protection (OTP), and 2-kV ESD on all pins.
The 650-V family starts with NV6257 (2 × 170 mΩ, PQFN 6×8), NV6287 (2 × 170 mΩ, PQFN 8×10), and NV6288 (2 × 120 mΩ, PQFN 8×10), supporting drives up to 600 W. Datasheets are available here.
