L6480 and L6482 Stepper Motor Drivers

The STMicroelectronics L6480 and L6482, realized in analog mixed signal technology, are advanced, fully-integrated solutions suitable for driving two-phase bipolar stepper motors with microstepping. They integrate a dual full-bridge gate driver for N-channel MOSFET power stages with embedded non-dissipative overcurrent protection. Thanks to a unique voltage-mode driving mode, which compensates for BEMF, bus voltage and motor winding variations, the microstepping of a true 1/128-step resolution is achieved in the L6480 model.

Thanks to a new current control, a 1/16 microstepping is achieved in the L6482 model through an adaptive decay mode which outperforms traditional implementations. The digital control core can generate user defined motion profiles with acceleration, deceleration, speed or target position easily programmed through a dedicated register set. All application commands and data registers, including those used to set analog values (i.e. current protection trip point, dead time, PWM frequency, etc.) are sent through a standard 5-Mbit/s SPI. A very rich set of protections (thermal, low bus voltage, overcurrent and motor stall) makes the L6480 "bullet proof", as required by the most demanding motor control applications.