St (NYSE: STM), a leader in disk drive and system chip solutions, introduced a new hard disk drive (HDD) motor controller chip, an IC that integrates all the circuitry needed to drive the spindle motor and voice coil of a personal computer drive. The hard drive motor controller, named L7207, is suitable for both mobile 5V drives and desktop 12V drives, thus providing manufacturers of both types of drives with the benefit of reduced inventory and manufacturing costs, as well as lower component costs for other types of drives.
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This new product can be used with a variety of hard drives and requires a minimal number of external components. The new products utilize ST's proprietary BCD (bipolar, CMOS and DMOS) low-power manufacturing technology to integrate digital circuits, high-efficiency power FET transistors and precision bipolar analog circuits on the same chip. Among many digital circuit technologies,ST's well-known Smooth Drive? The pseudo-cosine digital drive technology can minimize the noise from the spindle motor. In addition to the Smooth Drive function, the L7207 includes a spindle motor current limiting circuit, a starting position detection circuit and a power-saving mode spindle motor deceleration circuit.
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The voice coil section integrates a power FET transistor and provides a Class AB output stage with zero dead zone and minimal crossover distortion. The voice coil section is capable of operating in both linear and pulse width modulation (PWM) modes, allowing the driver to save a significant amount of power, a key feature for extending battery life in portable devices. The voice coil portion of the chip includes two current command dedicated 14-bit digital-to-analog converters (Dacs), a sensitive amplifier gain switch, a head load\/load out circuit, and a constant voltage head return function.
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The register-controlled L7207 is connected to the host system via a 40MHz serial bus. Its flexible digital architecture integrates all the functions required for a modern personal computer hard drive while minimizing the number of add-ons needed to control the circuit. The driver built-in auxiliary support features include two externally adjustable linear regulators, two switching regulators (positive and negative voltage), an internal isolated FET transistor, all voltage monitoring functions, a power-on reset (POR) circuit with integrated delay, a vibration sensor circuit, and a thermal sensing circuit with overheat shutdown.
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St's product development program also includes a new motor controller dedicated to consumer electronics, with engineering prototypes of the new product expected to be available to customers in July 2006. The new product is firmware compatible with the L7207 and is specifically designed and packaged for the 1.8 \"and below drives widely used in small consumer electronics devices, such as portable audio and video players. Noise squelch operation is particularly important in these applications, and this product will integrate the Smooth Drive noise reduction technology used in the L7027 along with adjustable linear and switching regulators. The motor has a peak current processing capacity of 0.5A, and the controller will provide a 50MHz serial port. .
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The L7207 HDD has been approved for mass production at $15.00 per unit, and the new IC is packaged in eTQFP64 plastic. ST company website st, com will soon publish product information.