TI eliminates half of External Components with new Compact and Precise Rotary Position Sensors

Texas Instruments has introduced the asserted industry-first resolver sensor interface with integrated power supply, exciter amplifier and functional safety features. The new device is touted to be capable of simultaneously exciting the resolver sensor coil and calculating the angle and velocity of a rotating motor shaft without the external components required by competitive solutions.

The PGA411-Q1 resolver-to-digital converter’s architecture helps enable designers to increase system accuracy and stability for end equipment like hybrid electric vehicle/electric vehicle (HEV/EV) traction inverters, electric power steering, integrated start-stop generators, industrial alternating current (AC) servo motor control and robotic arm control.

Key Features and Benefits of the new PGA411-Q1:

• High level of integration: The PGA411-Q1 reduces bill-of-materials (BOM) cost and cuts printed circuit board (PCB) space as much as 50 percent by eliminating at least 10 external and passive components. Its integrated exciter amplifier, high-voltage boost power supply with short protection, and programmable fault detection thresholds and filters allow the PGA411-Q1 to support a wide range of 4-Vrms and 7-Vrms resolver sensors and often eliminate the need for external circuitry.
• Advanced functional safety features: The integrated built-in self-test (BIST) performs an analog and logic component self-check automatically upon startup, enabling enhanced latent fault coverage. The self-test and built-in diagnostics largely eliminate the need for external protection and enable engineers to develop systems that meet Automotive Safety Integrity Level (ASIL) D functional safety certification for International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 26262, unlike competitive solutions.
• Architected for system stability and accuracy: The device architecture provides overvoltage, undervoltage and thermal protections, including separation of the high-current and high-voltage blocks from other parts of the device, like the analog front end (AFE), which are highly susceptible to damage. Additionally, the AFE’s integrated comparators remove the need for an external analog-to-digital converter, which helps enable stability by reducing the effects of quantization noise on the input signals from the sensor.
• Eliminate engineering hours: Built-in programmable features such as an internal clock, AFE, and increased diagnostics and protection enable engineers to scale the device to fit a range of resolver sensors and system needs. Designers can easily change internal parameters and move to a new platform design without the extensive engineering effort typically required to redesign hardware or debug a new system.

Package, availability and pricing

The PGA411-Q1 is now available in a 64-pin thermally enhanced thin quad flat pack (HTQFP) PowerPAD package starting at US$12.96 in 1,000-unit quantities.