The COM pin is the power supply pin of this device to power the gate drive circuitry. While a bypass capacitor on this pin is recommended for sensitive power supplies, it is not required for proper operation of the device. The COM pin supply ensures full drive potential with any GPIO above 1.5 V. The gate drive circuitry is based on low voltage CMOS transistors that can only handle a max gate voltage of 7 V. An integrated LDO reduces the COM voltage of 6.5 V to 30 V to a regulated voltage of 5.3 V. Though 6.5 V minimum is recommended for V_COM, the part still functions with a reduced COM voltage that has a reduced gate drive voltage and a resulting higher Rdson.