8-bit microcontroller family now qualified for automotive use

24 January 2007 DSP, Micros & Memory

STMicroelectronics′ ST7FMC microcontroller family has been Automotive-Grade qualified to meet the specific and rigorous demands of the automotive market.

Built around an industry-standard 8-bit core and designed for driving brushless direct current (BLDC) motors, the microcontroller family is ideal for use in various car body applications such as fuel and water pumps, cooling fans and interior blowers.

The ST7FMC family features higher system integration compared to alternative microprocessor or DSP-based approaches. The micros minimise the need for external components, and reduce PCB space, thus lowering the cost of the overall application.

The family features an embedded motor-control cell, which includes six-phase pulse-width modulation (PWM) control, voltage or current sensing and a highly flexible 'back electro-motive force' (BEMF) detector for the sensorless control of permanent-magnet BLDC motors. All the application-specific devices in the family now operate over the full automotive temperature range of -40 to 125°C and include safety features such as current sensing used for stall detection, asynchronous emergency stop, write-once registers and clock security system (CSS). ST's patented algorithms also enable the motor-control cell to offer unique fail-free motor-starting capabilities. It also has an integrated local interconnect network (LIN) communication interface.

Housed in tiny TQFP32 and TQFP44 packages, all devices in the family are supported by a range of state-of-the-art development tools.

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