If the motor is disconnected from the device, an open-load condition is detected and the nFAULT pin is latched low until a clear faults command is issued by the MCU either through the CLR_FLT bit or an nSLEEP reset pulse. The fault also clears when the device is power cycled or comes out of sleep mode. The OLD test is designed for applications that have capacitance less than 15 nF when the OLP_DLY bit set to 0b and for less than 60 nF when the OLP_DLY bit is set to 1b on the OUTx pins. This setting is equivalent to measuring the resistance values listed in Table 7-12.

Open load detection works in both standby mode (OLP) and active mode (OLA). OLP detects the presence of the motor prior to commutating the motor. OLA detects the motor disconnection from the driver during commutation.