150 Arms Motor Drive Reference Design with GaN FETs Provides Best Performance for eMobility, Forklifts, and High-Power Drones

EPC announces the availability of the EPC9186, a 3-phase BLDC motor drive inverter using the EPC2302 eGaN® FET. The EPC9186 supports a wide input DC voltage ranging from 14 V to 80 V. The high-power capability of the EPC9186 supports applications such as electric scooters, small electric vehicles, agricultural machinery, forklifts, and high-power drones.

The EPC9186 uses four EPC2302 FETs in parallel per switch position and can deliver up to 200 Apk maximum output current. The EPC9186 contains all the necessary critical function circuits to support a complete motor drive inverter including gate drivers, regulated auxiliary power rails for housekeeping supplies, voltage, and temperature sense, accurate current sense, and protection functions. The boards can also be configured for multiphase DC–DC conversion and support both phase and leg shunt current sensing.

Major benefits of a GaN-based motor drive are exhibited with this reference design, including lower distortion for lower acoustic noise, lower current ripple for reduced magnetic loss, lower torque ripple for improved precision, and lower filtering for lower cost (more info).