GaN motor drive ICs offer bidirectional current sensing

Navitas Semiconductor has announced a new family of GaNSense Motor Drive ICs targeting home appliances and industrial drives up to 600 W.

Specifically designed for motor drive applications, this fully integrated solution combines two GaN FETs in a half-bridge configuration with drive, control, sensing, and autonomous protection. Compared to legacy silicon IGBT solutions, this results in a 4% higher efficiency, 40% PCB footprint reduction, and 15% lower system cost.

Key features include bidirectional lossless current sensing, which measures both positive and negative currents. This is critical in motor drives, given recirculating currents in the reverse direction between switching coil phases. The lossless sensing eliminates the need for external shunt resistors, resulting in higher efficiency, improved reliability, and a more compact design.

Turn-on and turn-off slew rates are fully adjustable, allowing designers to optimize EMI, performance, and maximize efficiency. The autonomous freewheeling function switches on the GaN IC upon detection of reverse current to reduce conduction losses, maximize efficiency, and reduce the size and cost of heatsinks.

The GaNSense Motor Drive IC family also includes several safety features such as high- and low-side short circuit protection, over-temperature protection (OTP), and 2kV ESD on all pins. The 650V family starts with NV6257 (2 x 170 mΩ, PQFN 6×8), NV6287 (2 x 170 mΩ, PQFN 8×10), and NV6288 (2 x 120 mΩ, PQFN 8×10), supporting drives up to 600 W.

Target applications focus on motor drives up to 600W, including air conditioners, heat pumps, washing machines, dryers, dishwashers, refrigerators, and hair dryers. For low-power industrial drives, applications range from pumps to circulators and fans.

The GaNSense Motor Drive ICs will be on display at PCIM 2025 (Hall 9, Booth #544, May 6th—8th, 2025).