Motor Control and Drive
Electric motors are everywhere, making our lives easier every day. They can be found in your washer, dryer, refrigerator, car, fan, pumps, air conditioner and a huge number of other products where they need to run as efficiently as possible to consume less energy. From the simplest to the most advanced implementation, each motor control application has a specific combination of requirements, including performance, reliability, efficiency and precision, as well as size, cost and time to market. If you are working on a project that includes a motor, discover how our extensive array of products and solutions can help you implement the right type of control for your application.
- Flexible solutions for robust, high-efficiency and precision control of motors that can be customized to meet your requirements
- Scalable product portfolio includes PIC®, AVR®, PIC32MK and SAM microcontrollers (MCUs), dsPIC® Digital Signal Controllers (DSCs) and FPGAs with specialized peripherals for controlling different types of motors
- motorBench® Development Suite for automated tuning of Field-Oriented Control (FOC) software and code generation to reduce your development time
- As complementary devices to our controllers, our MOSFET gate drivers and single-chip motor control and motor drive solutions deliver a total system solution
- A variety of resources to address functional safety compliance in your automotive, industrial and consumer applications
- Support for rapid prototyping using MATLAB® or Scilab® simulation tools, generate motor control code directly from your simulation model
We also offer a variety of scalable development tools, including options for dual-motor control, for quick prototyping of low- and high-voltage systems. Our free motor control software, application notes and tuning guides will also speed up your development while reducing your risk. If you need assistance with your design, we provide technical support and a variety of training resources to guide you, or you can contact one of our authorized Design Partners to leverage their technical expertise.
We are here to support you. Contact our Client Success Team to get assistance with your motor control design.
Learn About Our Solutions for These Types of Motors
Stepper
Recommended Motor Control Products
Find the device families with the right performance level, memory size, peripherals and number of I/O pins based on the type of motor and the complexity of the control technique that your application requires.
| Products | Brushed DC Motor | Stepper Motor | Brushless DC Motor | PMSM | ACIM | Multi-Axis Motion Control |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MCUs, DSCs and FPGAs | PIC® and AVR® MCUs | |||||
| dsPIC® DSCs | ||||||
| SAM and PIC32MK MCUs | ||||||
| IGLOO®2 and SmartFusion®2 SoC FPGAs | ||||||
| Single-Chip Motor Drivers | ||||||
| Gate Drivers | MOSFET and IGBT Gate Drivers | |||||
8-bit Microcontrollers
PIC® and AVR® MCUs offer a variety of peripherals, speeds and package options, making them well-suited for implementing basic motor control in simple and cost-effective applications.
dsPIC33 Digital Signal Controllers
High-performance dsPIC33 DSCs with a DSP instruction set feature motor control specific peripherals, including high-resolution Pulse-Width Modulators (PWMs) with complementary waveforms, dedicated time bases and high analog integration. Single- and dual-core dsPIC33 DSCs can be used to implement high-efficiency, high-precision variable speed, constant torque and Field-Oriented Control (FOC) motor control applications.
32-bit Microcontrollers
Ranging from entry-level up to high-performance devices, our portfolio of Arm® Cortex® M0+, M4 and M7-based SAM MCUs and PIC32MK MIPS-based MCUs with floating point processing and DSP extensions give you the power, features and precision you need.
FPGAs
Our comprehensive low-power FPGA-based motor control suite consists of a hardware platform and software IP for developing BLDC, stepper, PMSM and inductor motors used in multi-axis servos, multi-motor robotic arms, avionics, medical and electric vehicles. Their high-performance features include 1 ms control loops, 300 kHz switching frequencies and 5 ns PWM resolution with dead time control.
Gate Drivers
To accompany your selected motor control MCU or DSC, we provide a variety of half-bridge, full-bridge and 3-phase MOSFET gate drivers with integrated voltage supplies and feedback circuits for use in PMSM, BLDC and ACIM motors.
Single-Chip Motor Control and Motor Drive Controllers
Often used as companion chips to our PIC and AVR MCUs and dsPIC Digital Signal Controllers, our single-chip motor control and motor drive solutions enable simpler designs and decrease board space. These solutions include BLDC, stepper and multi-channel half-bridge motor drivers with integrated MOSFETs.
Jumpstart Your Development with Reference Designs
Accelerate your system development with our fully functional reference designs that provide proofs of concepts and best practices for creating for motor control applications. These reference designs include hardware design, firmware and documentation.
Featured Reference Designs
Simplify Your Development with Motor Control Hardware and Software Solutions
Our scalable motor control development tools enable rapid prototyping for low- and high-voltage systems, including dual-motor control designs. Use our free motor control software, application notes and tuning guides to simplify and speed up your development cycle.
motorBench® Development Suite
The motorBench® Development Suite is a Graphical User Interface (GUI)-based software development tool for Field-Oriented Control (FOC), performing accurate measurement of critical motor parameters, automatic tuning of feedback control gains and generating source code for an MPLAB® X IDE project utilizing the Motor Control Application Framework (MCAF).
Motor Control Algorithms and Software Library
To support the development of motor applications, we provide motor control libraries and examples for Field-Oriented Control (FOC), windmilling, DC-link compensation, field weakening and many other control algorithms.
Hardware Development Tools
We offer a variety of development boards that provide an easy and economical way to evaluate your motor control applications.
Motor Control Simulation
If you are looking for a rapid prototyping solution for use with MATLAB or Scilab, our simulation package allows you to compile a Simulink® model that can be programmed into dsPIC DSCs, PIC32MK or SAM E70 flash memory with a single push of a button. The motor control library blocksets, motor model and development boards provide a complete motor control development environment.
Design Partners
Our design partners have proven motor control design expertise as verified by Microchip's motor control engineers. Please contact any of these companies for assistance with your design.