Motor control application designers are now moving away from the traditional universal or AC motor design to a more sophisticated brushless DC (BLDC) motor or permanent magnet synchronous motor (PMSM) design. However, choosing either of these methods can be challenging if the designer has limited access to advanced, complex motor control algorithms. This can lead to significant spending of research and development resources and longer design times.

To help designers with these cost and software burdens, Fairchild Semiconductor (NYSE: FCS) developed the FCM8531 analog and digital integrated motor controller. The FCM8531 is a tailored configurable solution complete with user guides, reference designs, and evaluation boards that help motor control designers shorten time-to-market and minimize software design efforts.

Parallel Processors in a One-Chip Design

The FCM8531 is a 3-phase, hybrid BLDC/PMSM controller with two parallel processors – an advanced motor controller (AMC) and an embedded microcontroller (MCU) – that provides a complete, one-chip solution for complex motor control applications. The two core processors work independently but collaboratively to exchange data through an internal communications interface that helps to avoid system hang-ups and improve hardware protection. The FCM8531 minimizes the software burden with its integrated hardware controller and MCU interface management and achieves a fast load-response motor system with increased efficiency.

Tailored Design for Simplified Functionality

Capable of adapting to various motor designs, the AMC performs powerful algorithms such as sine wave control, field oriented control (FOC) and direct and quadrature (DQ) control, using Fairchild’s libraries that can be configured and stored to provide high performance motor control. The MCU interface, paired with the AMC, enables users to easily change the register values for different motor operation flows and characteristics. The device is ideally suited to solve start-up jerks in sensor-less fan applications, as well as acoustic noise and low efficiency issues in various fan and pump applications. Comprised of rich hardware protection features such as over-voltage and over-current protection, the FCM8531 considers and provides a quick response to all failure modes while the embedded MCU allows for easy implementation of additional features.

Easy-to-Use Development Tools

Fairchild’s motor control development system (MCDS) consists of an integrated development environment (IDE) and a MCDS programming kit that allows engineers to configure the AMC and develop codes for the MCU. Together these processing cores provide an integrated software engineering platform that facilitates the rapid development of motor control programs. The MCDS-IDE is easy to use, improves design goal timelines and, when used with the MCDS programming kit, can quickly complete code programming to enable real-time tuning of motor operation signals.

Features and Benefits:

• AMC with integrated MCU minimizes software burden and provides flexible design adaptation
• Parallel processors avoid system hang-up and provides better system reliability
• Libraries of powerful algorithms eliminate know-how needs, minimizes resources
• MCDS development tool, extensive design resources, reference designs, and training

Fairchild Semiconductor
www.fairchildsemi.com