Atmel's Brushless Motor Driver ICs Open the Door to Miniature, Cost-efficient Automotive Under-the-hood Designs

Detroit (ots/PRNewswire) -

Convergence Show -- Atmel(R) Corporation (Nasdaq: ATML) announced
today the availability of the highly integrated driver ICs ATA6833
and ATA6834 for brushless DC motor applications such as fuel pumps,
turbo chargers, or exhaust gas recirculation -- applications which
are continuously operated and therefore require maximum reliability.
These new devices can also be used for premium-class convenience
electronics such as power window or seat adjustment applications,
which benefit from the low noise of the new BLDC motor driver ICs.
Both devices are manufactured using Atmel's high-voltage 0.8 um
BCD-on-SOI technology, which enables the use of much smaller
lower-cost 7 mm x 7 mm QFN packages.

The ATA6833/34 are industry's first brushless DC motor driver ICs
with integrated driver, watchdog, voltage regulator, and LIN
interface functionality in a single IC. This facilitates extremely
small designs and helps to reduce overall system costs by about a
third. Furthermore, the high integration level improves board quality
by reducing the number of solder joints.

The ATA6833 is a BLDC motor System Basis Chip with 3 half-bridge
gate drivers. The 3 push-pull stages with integrated charge pump can
drive 6 external NMOS transistors. The integrated watchdog monitors
the microcontroller, e.g., Atmel's automotive-qualified ATmega32M1,
which in turn is supplied by an integrated voltage regulator
programmed to 5V or 3.3V output voltage providing 100 mA current
capability. An integrated LIN 2.1 transceiver -- based on Atmel's
stand-alone LIN transceiver ATA6662 -- completes the system basis
features. In standby mode, the current consumption is less than 50
microampere.

The ATA6834, the ATA6833's high-temperature companion, handles
operating chip temperatures of up to 200 degrees Celsius and is
therefore ideal for all high-temperature "under-the-hood"
applications where actuators handle the flow of hot exhaust gas or
hot oil. To implement space-saving designs, the ECUs can be attached
to a turbo charger or used to build a mechatronic unit along with a
pump motor.

The ATA6833/34 provide several protection features including a
two-stage thermal warning and thermal shut-off as well as open-load,
overload, short-circuit, and undervoltage detection with switch-off
functionality. To protect the external NMOS transistors, a built-in
shoot-through protection helps to avoid dangerous simultaneous
activation of a high-side and a low-side transistor between supply
and ground. Customers can adapt the dead time to the needs of their
NMOS transistors by the value of an external resistor/capacitor
combination.

These devices meet the strict automotive qualification demands
(protection against conducted interference, EMC, and ESD protection)
and can withstand transients as specified in ISO/TR 7637.

Availability and Pricing

Samples of the new brushless motor driver ICs ATA6833/34 are now
available in QFN48 packages measuring only 7 mm x 7 mm. Pricing
starts at US $2.95 for the ATA6833 and at US $3.30 for the ATA6834
for 10k-piece quantities each. An application board for development
support, including a programmed AVR(R) microcontroller, can be
ordered for US $139.

Footnote
BCDMOS = Mixed-signal technology with Bipolar, CMOS and DMOS components
BLDC = Brushless Direct Current
ECU = Electronic Control Unit
EMC = Electro Magnetic Compatibility
ESD = Electro Static Discharge
NMOS = N-type Metal Oxide Semiconductor
QFN = Quad Flat No leads
SOI= Silicon on Insulator

About Atmel

Atmel is a worldwide leader in the design and manufacture of
microcontrollers, advanced logic, mixed-signal, nonvolatile memory
and radio frequency (RF) components. Leveraging one of the industry's
broadest intellectual property (IP) technology portfolios, Atmel is
able to provide the electronics industry with complete system
solutions focused on consumer, industrial, security, communications,
computing and automotive markets.

(C) 2008 Atmel Corporation. All rights reserved. Atmel(R), Atmel
logo and combinations thereof, AVR(R), and others are registered
trademarks or trademarks of Atmel Corporation or its subsidiaries.
Other terms and product names may be trademarks of others.

Information
Product information on Atmel's brushless motor driver ICs ATA6833/34 may
be retrieved at:
http://www.atmel.com/dyn/products/product_card.asp?part_id=4412 (ATA6833)
http://www.atmel.com/dyn/products/product_card.asp?part_id=4411 (ATA6834)
Press Contacts
Dr. Susanne van Clewe, Marcom Manager Communications and Automotive
Products
Tel: +49-7131-67-2081, Email: susanne.van-clewe@atmel.com
Helen Perlegos, Public Relations
Tel: +1-408-487-2963, Email: hperlegos@atmel.com

Web site: http://www.atmel.com

ots Originaltext: Atmel Corporation
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Contact:
Dr. Susanne van Clewe, Marcom Manager Communications and Automotive
Products, +49-7131- 67-2081, susanne.van-clewe@atmel.com, or Helen
Perlegos, Public Relations, +1-408-487-2963, hperlegos@atmel.com,
both of Atmel Corporation