STMicroelectronics Launches Tiny 2.6A Brushed DC Motor Driver for Portable, Battery-Powered IoT Devices

The STSPIN250 single-chip 2.6A driver for brushed DC motors extends STMicroelectronics’ family of miniature, low-voltage, energy-efficient drivers for battery-powered portable and wearable applications

The driver integrates a full power-MOSFET bridge and fixed off-time PWM current controller in a tiny 3mm x 3mm package that saves space in portable equipment. The low on-resistance of the power stage (200mΩ total, high-side + low-side) and the best-in-the market current-sipping standby mode — below 80nA — help maximize battery runtime and keep equipment-case temperatures down. Its supply-voltage range of 10V to 1.8V allows designers to specify a power source as small as a single Li-ion cell.

Brushed DC motors offer a strong combination of performance, cost-effectiveness, and reliability, and are a popular choice of designers in a wide variety of applications.

STSPIN250’s high output-current capability allows use in low-to-medium-power applications such as portable printers, POS terminals, consumer devices, electronic valves or door lockers, toys, and medical or wellness devices ranging from electric toothbrushes to syringe pumps. It also has comprehensive built-in protection features including Under-Voltage lockout (UVLO), non-dissipative over-current protection, short-circuit protection, and thermal shutdown.

The STSPIN250 joins the three monolithic, low-voltage drivers for portable and battery-powered applications that ST introduced last year: the STSPIN220 for stepper motors, STSPIN230 for three-phase brushless motors, and STSPIN240 for brushed DC motors up to 1.3A. The STSPIN family now presents designers with a choice of compact, convenient, and energy-efficient drivers for the motor types most commonly used in portable applications, contributing to the widespread adoption of battery-powered IoT devices.

A complete ecosystem is ready to support fast and easy evaluation and prototyping with the STSPIN250, and comprises an STM32 Nucleo expansion board (X-NUCLEO-IHM13A1) and related software tools (X-CUBE-SPN13) that connect motor-control projects with the extensive STM32Cube MCU-development resources.

The STSPIN250 is in production now in the 3mm x 3mm VQFPN package, priced $0.75 for orders of 1000 pieces.