Date: 19/01/2010

All-in-one motor controller IC for single-coil low-power brushless DC fans and motors

Diodes Inc has rolled out a new all-in-one motor controller IC for single-coil low-power brushless DC fans and motors. Featuring necessary drive, protection and interface functionality,the SOT89-5L packaged AH5798 is suitable for small fan and motor applications, including cooling fans for netbooks and notebooks.

Integrating a full-bridge driver featuring soft switching, the controller requires no external driver components but supports average source and sink currents up to 300mA. The device's soft switching operation makes it particularly suitable for low noise applications. Further space saving comes from the AH5798's built-in Hall sensor and amplifier.

The controller's locked rotor detection and self restart functions help protect the coil from over-heating or burning out and initiate automatic restart once the locked rotor is released. The AH5798 also includes a tachometer open-drain output to make the device easier to interface for external status and speed monitoring. The chip's operating voltage is low from just 1.8 Volts to 5.5 Volts, and ambient operating temperature rating is high from -40ºC to +105ºC.
Company web site is http://www.diodes.com