A More Effective Integration Strategy within Automotive Brushed DC Motor Systems

Brushed DC motors have a vital role to play in modern automobile design, being used in relation to a broad range of different functions. According to figures compiled by analyst firm Data Bridge Market Research, the global brushed DC motor business will witness a growth of 6.5% between now and 2027. It will predominantly be opportunities within the automotive sector that give impetus to much of this predicted growth.

Requiring only minimal maintenance and having relatively low unit costs associated with them, brushed DC motors still have notable advantages over brushless DC motors (BLDCs) when it comes to certain application scenarios. This is particularly true from an automotive perspective. Here they can attend to in-cabin comfort functions, as well as addressing various under-the-hood applications. The average car is likely to already have 15-20 brushed DC motors in operation, and it is expected that this number will only increase as new uses for them start to emerge - thanks to increasing vehicle electrification.  

In order to lower overall component cost and save valuable space on densely packed PCBs, Tier 1’s are looking to make motor control hardware more streamlined through greater levels of integration. One way of achieving this is to incorporate the pre-driver into the microcontroller. This will, however, cause issues when design upgrades are needed, or when derivatives of the original design are required for inclusion in other car models. It will lead to a major ramp up in the associated software development effort. In contrast to this, integrating the pre-driver and the H-bridge together will be a much simpler prospect. The streamlining of the system will still be possible, but the engineering work involved will be far less.  

Toshiba has used this as a starting point for its latest generation of highly advanced automotive-qualified motor driver ICs. The company has gone even further than this by integrating two H-bridges and the pre-driver. Its TB9053FTG and TB9054FTG devices are both capable of driving a pair of 5A motors or a single 10A motor. They facilitate a platform approach to automotive motor system design, in which the microcontroller and all its related code can be leveraged in multiple implementations, thereby shortening the development periods involved.

Download the informative white paper by Toshiba on brushed DC motor control below: