Diodes Inc. has introduced the IC DGD2136 3-phase half-bridge gate driver in an SO-28 (type TH) package. It can directly switch N-channel power MOSFETs for driving BLDC motors using three half bridges up to 600 V and is designed to operate at 3.3 V. The IC will operate down at 2.4V and can be driven directly by microcontrollers running at 3.3 V.

Brushless DC motors are being used in more and more applications because they are easy to control electronically. For this reason a fully integrated three-phase motor driver chip, able to drive a corresponding number of power MOSFET devices should prove to be popular with design engineers.  

The IC DGD2136 provides 200 mA turn-on drive and 350 mA turn-off drive current to ensure fast MOSFET switch-off. A built-in dead time of 290 ns prevents simultaneous switching of upper and lower FETs in a half-bridge configuration. Overcurrent protection circuits (measured via a shunt) and undervoltage lockout for VCC shuts down the corresponding high-side output on all channels.  The outputs are tolerant to negative transients and dV/dt immune.  A single chip offering three-phase driving ensures tight control of the MOSFET switching waveforms allowing the delay times of the three half-bridges to have very close tolerances for improved efficiency.