8.1 Overview

The DRV835x family of devices are integrated 100-V gate drivers for three-phase motor drive applications. These devices decrease system component count, cost, and complexity by integrating three independent half-bridge gate drivers, charge pump and linear regulator for the high-side and low-side gate driver supply voltages, optional triple current shunt amplifiers, and an optional 350-mA buck regulator. A standard serial peripheral interface (SPI) provides a simple method for configuring the various device settings and reading fault diagnostic information through an external controller. Alternatively, a hardware interface (H/W) option allows for configuring the most commonly used settings through fixed external resistors.

The gate drivers support external N-channel high-side and low-side power MOSFETs and can drive up to 1-A source, 2-A sink peak currents with a 25-mA average output current. The high-side gate drive supply voltage is generated using a doubler charge-pump architecture that regulates the VCP output to V_VDRAIN + 10.5-V. The low-side gate drive supply voltage is generated using a linear regulator from the VM power supply that regulates the VGLS output to 14.5-V. The VGLS supply is further regulated to 11-V on the GLx low-side gate driver outputs. A smart gate-drive architecture provides the ability to dynamically adjust the output gate-drive current strength allowing for the gate driver to control the power MOSFET V_DS switching speed. This allows for the removal of external gate drive resistors and diodes reducing BOM component count, cost, and PCB area. The architecture also uses an internal state machine to protect against gate-drive short-circuit events, control the half-bridge dead time, and protect against dV/dt parasitic turnon of the external power MOSFET.

The gate drivers can operate in either a single or dual supply architecture. In the single supply architecture, VM can be tied to VDRAIN and is regulated to the correct supply voltages internally. In the dual supply architecture, VM can be connected to a lower voltage supply from a more efficient switching regulator to improve the device efficiency. VDRAIN stays connected to the external MOSFETs to set the correct charge pump and overcurrent monitor reference.

The DRV8353 and DRV8353R devices integrate three, bidirectional current-shunt amplifiers for monitoring the current level through each of the external half-bridges using a low-side shunt resistor. The gain setting of the shunt amplifier can be adjusted through the SPI or hardware interface with the SPI providing additional flexibility to adjust the output bias point.

The DRV8350R and DRV8353R devices integrate a 350-mA buck regulator that can be used to power an external controller or other logic circuits. The buck regulator is implemented as a separate internal die that can use either the same or a different power supply from the gate driver.

In addition to the high level of device integration, the DRV835x family of devices provides a wide range of integrated protection features. These features include power-supply undervoltage lockout (UVLO), gate drive undervoltage lockout (GDUV), V_DS overcurrent monitoring (OCP), gate-driver short-circuit detection (GDF), and overtemperature shutdown (OTW/OTSD). Fault events are indicated by the nFAULT pin with detailed information available in the SPI registers on the SPI device version.

The DRV835x family of devices are available in 0.5-mm pin pitch, QFN surface-mount packages. The QFN sizes are 5 × 5 mm for the 32-pin package, 6 × 6 mm for the 40-pin package, and 7 × 7 mm for the 48-pin package.