Tysondello, Belgium, December 2, 2020 – Melexis, a global microelectronics engineering company, announces the launch of its third-generation LIN driver for mechatronic applications in the automotive industry, including motor-controlled flaps and valves, as well as small fans and pumps— MLX 81330 and MLX 81332 for small motors up to 10 W.

The third-generation smart LIN drivers MLX 81330 (0.5 A motor drive) and MLX 81332 (1.0 A motor drive) are based on high-voltage SOI (Silicon-On-Insulator) technology with a high level of stability and function density, combining analog circuits and digital circuit, providing a true single-chip solution that fully complies with the industry standard LIN 2.x/SAE J2602 and ISO 17987-4 LIN slave node specifications.

In addition to the integrated motor driver, the new generation has expanded I/O capabilities and features a dual microcontroller architecture, with one core dedicated to communication and the other to run application software.

The MLX 81330 and MLX 81332 utilize a “fully integrated” LIN slave design methodology that reduces bill of materials (BOM) costs, reduces PCB size, simplifies production design, and speeds assembly. The MLX 81332 interfaces directly with the ECU and can drive up to four phases of a motor with a maximum current of 1 A per phase, or two phases with a maximum current of 1.4 A. This means it can drive 2-phase DC motors, 3-phase BLDC motors or 4-phase bipolar stepper motors with Field Oriented Control (FOC) algorithms (sensored or sensorless).

The smart LIN driver contains five 16-bit PWM timers, two 16-bit timers and a 10-bit ADC as well as differential current sense amplifiers and temperature sensors. In addition, overcurrent, overvoltage, and overtemperature detection/protection functions are integrated. In addition to supporting analog I/O, it can interface with standard external sensors using common protocols for automotive applications such as SPI and SENT.

The integrated multiple processing cores share an on-chip memory architecture. The application core (MLX16-FX) has access to 32 KB of Flash (with ECC), 10 KB of ROM, 2 KB of RAM, and 512 bytes of EEPROM (with ECC). The communications processor (MLX4) has access to 6 KB of ROM and 512 bytes of RAM. Embedded motor controller ICs are used to implement ASIL-B (ISO 26262) compliant safety applications.

The smart LIN driver comes with software that includes the LIN communication stack.