DN-50

Design Note

Simple Techniques for Isolating and Correcting Common Application

by Mickey McClure

The UC3625 brushless DC motor control IC incor- The Hall sensors should be powered by something
porates many useful features which greatly simplify other than VREF, such as VCC. While there is no
the design of low cost and reliable brushless DC general rule on how much DC current is too much,
motor drive systems. Although the controller IC is as DC currents approach 30mA, there will be more
designed for ease of circuit implementation, a few reason to suspect that VREF is the source of the
precautions must be taken to insure proper opera- lock up condition.
tion. This design note highlights a few areas where
AC current will be drawn from the V REF point when
the IC may not operate correctly if suitable design
it is used to provide the pull up voltage for the Hall
techniques are not followed. inputs to the UC3625. Noise spikes caused by this
REFERENCE VOLTAGE current drain may be severe enough to latch false
A common application problem is inadequate de- logic states on the internal protection circuitry if
coupling and/or excessive loading on the VREF pin adequate decoupling is not provided. The reference
of the UC3625. As the data sheet indicates, the voltage should always be decoupled to ground with
maximum recommended current drain on this node a high quality ceramic capacitor of at least 0.1µF lo-
is 30mA DC. Much of the UC3625 internal logic is cated as close as possible to VREF and ground pins.
also referenced off of this node and any transient or An electrolytic capacitor should be placed in parallel
noise spikes on the VREF pin can result in improper with the ceramic capacitor if there is any significant
circuit operation. When the VREF pin is affected by DC loading on the reference voltage. A value of
noise, the result is usually a "lock up" condition 10µF is usually sufficient. The placement of the
where the motor drive outputs become disabled. electrolytic capacitor is not as critical, but it should
This may result from a false trip of the under-volt- be located as close to the ceramic capacitor as
age lock-out circuit, a false trip of soft start, or an practicality will allow. Figure 1 shows the recom-
improper decode of the Hall sensors. Other protec- mended power connections and decoupling for a
tion signals such as RC-Brake or ISENSE may be af- typical UC3625 motor drive system.
fected as well.
A simple trouble shooting technique can be used to
determine when an upset of the UC3625 internal
logic is causing the lock up condition. The VREF pin
of the IC should be isolated from the rest of the cir-
cuit and decoupled with at least 0.1µF. Any external
+5V circuitry should be powered off of a separate
bench supply. The problem should immediately go
away if the VREF pin is the culprit. The motor should
now operate normally, with no lock up condition.
The solution to this problem will usually involve both
reducing the external current drain on V REF and in-
creased decoupling. Every effort should be made to
reduce the DC current drain as low as possible so Figure 1: Recommended Power Connections
that any AC currents will have less impact on VREF. and Decoupling

10/93
Design Note DN-50

HALL INPUTS
High power motor drive systems are frequently
characterized by large noise spikes induced by high
frequency switching. Under certain conditions these
noise spikes can trigger Hall sensor inputs to latch
improper commutation states. If an improper com-
mutation state is latched, the correct state is then
locked out for the duration of the tach-out pulse. The
result is not generally a lock out condition, but
rather a motor that responds in a sluggish or unpre-
dictable manner.
As indicated by the UC3625 data sheet, any
change in the H1, H2, or H3 inputs loads data from
the position sensor latches. Because the position
latches are inhibited for the duration of the user pro- Figure 2: Recommended Hall Filtering
grammable tach-out pulse, a noise induced state
will lock out the correct commutation state. The A more noise tolerant solution involves inserting
power amplifier will then energize the wrong wind- comparators between the Hall sensors and the
ings of the motor, possibly resulting in reduced UC3625 if the passive technique is not sufficient.
torque, or zero or negative torque depending on Because Hall sensors are typically open collector
which incorrect state is latched in. The controller will drivers, their outputs can easily become corrupted
allow a new state to latch once the tach-out pulse when driving long cables in a high noise environ-
times out. Normal operation may resume at this ment. Much greater signal integrity can be achieved
time, or the noise related problems may continue. by using comparators configured with a large
The response of the motor is therefore erratic and amount of hysteresis to attain greater noise margin.
unpredictable. They must be configured in the noninverting mode
so that the correct Hall states will be latched by the
This problem can be traced with a logic analyzer or UC3625. Figure 3 shows an example circuit for driv-
four channel oscilloscope connected to the three ing the Hall inputs with comparators.
Hall inputs and the tach-out pulse. For normal op-
eration, the logic analyzer should display the correct CURRENT SENSE CIRCUITRY
sequence of the Hall signals, and the tach-out pulse The UC3625 current sense circuitry must also be
should occur at regular intervals proportional to the configured correctly to prevent improper circuit re-
motor velocity. Incorrect commutation states are in- sponse. Noise problems may cause the UC3625 to
dicated by the tach-out pulse occurring at random supply less current to the motor than the controller
intervals. These incorrect states may or may not commands, resulting in poor motor response, and
show up on the analyzer display, depending on the possibly undesired torque limiting.
frequency and amplitude of the noise.
The most important factor in achieving proper cur-
The problem can usually be corrected by passive fil- rent limit response is a correct differential
tering of the Hall inputs. An RC network of 1k and measurement of the voltage across the current
2.2nF is recommended with the filter components sense resistor. Separate traces must be run from
located as close as possible to the IC. Small delays the ISENSE1 and ISENSE2 inputs directly to the cur-
in the filter are not a problem because the sensors rent sense resistor. If an input filter is used, it should
normally generate modified gray code with only one be balanced, and the filter resistors should tie di-
output changing at a time. The rise and fall times of rectly to the current sense resistor. Recommended
the Hall signal edges must be shorter than 20µs for component values for the differential filter are 270Ω
correct tachometer operation. Figure 2 depicts the and 4.7nF. Never should one ISENSE input line be
recommended implementation of this filter tech- simply grounded and the other input driven single
nique.

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Design Note DN-50

Figure 3: Comparator Sense of Hall Sensors

ended. The recommended circuit layout for the IS- ble to the ISENSE pin, and a low impedance path to
ENSE1 and ISENSE2 input signals is shown in Figure ground for its low side is essential. Filtering at this
4. point has the advantage of allowing fast signal in-
versions to be correctly processed by the absolute
value circuit before filtering takes place.
If high levels of common mode noise or ground
bounce are affecting the ISENSE inputs it may be
necessary to decouple the ISENSE inputs (pins 4
and 5) to ground with 470pF capacitors. These ca-
pacitors will shunt out any high frequency common
mode noise, and allow for a more accurate meas-
urement of true motor current.
NONLINEARITY PROBLEMS ASSOCIATED WITH
NOISE ON THE TIMING CAPACITOR
Switching noise can result in discontinuities in the
Figure 4: Proper Current Sense Layout
linear response of the PWM circuitry if the timing
Additional noise immunity can be achieved by add- capacitor on the RC-OSC pin is not located prop-
ing a capacitor from the ISENSE output to ground. erly. The UC3625 creates the sawtooth waveform by
This capacitor should be located as close as possi- measuring the voltage across the capacitor tied be-

3
Design Note DN-50

tween RC-OSC and ground. This voltage is charged rator is referenced from this local ground point, the
by a constant current source, and is discharged correct trip point will be maintained and the fre-
when a fixed threshold is reached. The output duty quency of the oscillator will remain constant.
cycle of the power stage is determined by compar-
For some cases it may be necessary to add a low
ing the error amplifier output to the sawtooth wave-
value resistor in series with the Pwr-VCC pin or the
form. When the magnitude of the sawtooth output (PD and PU) pins of the UC3625. These re-
waveform is greater than the output of the error am-
sistors will limit the peak value of transient currents
plifier, the output stage is switched off.
in the output driver stage of the IC. By minimizing
Large current spikes can result in localized ground these currents, the amount of ground bounce can
bounce when the power stage switches. The low be reduced, and therefore the nonlinearity problem
side of the capacitor can be "pumped up" if the tim- can be curtailed.
ing capacitor is not located near the IC. This prob- While the previously described techniques will re-
lem will result in the oscillator comparator tripping sult in a more robust and reliable motor drive de-
early, and the sawtooth waveform will jump to a
sign, they are by no means the answer to every
higher frequency. The effect will be a nonlinear
problem. As with all analog circuitry, there is no sub-
PWM gain function. Since the PWM is usually part stitute for good circuit design and layout practice
of the forward loop, this will not be a problem in when designing with the UC3625. Every effort
many closed loop systems because the outer con- should be made to keep all signal runs as short as
trol loop will simply compensate for the nonlinearity. possible, and avoid running sensitive traces near
For cases where the nonlinearity is a problem, the each other. Finally, proper grounding techniques
situation can usually be mitigated by connecting the should always be maintained, as well as careful at-
timing capacitor directly across the RC-OSC and tention to EMI reduction.
GND pins of the UC3625. Since the internal compa-

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