
ML4425
PRODUCT SPECIFICATION
10
REV. 1.0.2 7/2/01
Back EMF Sensing PLL Commutation Control
Three blocks form a phase locked loop that locks the com-
mutation clock onto the back EMF signal: the commutation
state machine, the voltage controlled oscillator, and the back
EMF sampler. The complete phase locked loop is illustrated
in Figure 7. The phased locked loop requires a lead lag filter
that is set by external components on SPEED FB. The com-
ponents are selected as follows:
Start-Up Sequence
When power is first applied to the ML4425 and the motor is
at rest, the back EMF is equal to zero. The motor needs to be
rotating for the back EMF sampler to lock onto the rotor
position and commutate the motor. The ML4425 uses an
open loop start-up technique to bring the rotor from rest up
to a speed fast enough to allow back EMF sensing. Start-up
is comprised of three modes: align mode, ramp mode, and
run mode.
Align Mode (RESET)
Before the motor can be started, the rotor must be in a known
position. When power is first applied to the ML4425, the
controller is reset into the align mode. Align mode turns on
the output drivers LB, HA, and HC which aligns the motor
into a position 30 electrical degrees before the center of the
first commutation state. This is shown as state R in the com-
mutation states of Table 1. Align mode must last long enough
to allow the motor and its load to settle into this position. The
align mode time is set by a capacitor connected to the C
AT
pin as shown in Figure 8. C
AT
is charged by a constant
750μA current from GND to 1.5 V until the align comparator
trips to end the align mode. A starting point for C
AT
is calcu-
lated as follows:
If the align time is not long enough to allow the rotor to settle
for reliable starting, then increase C
AT
until the desired per-
formance is achieved.
Figure 7. Back EMF Commutation Phase Locked Loop
Ramp Mode
At the end of align mode the controller goes into ramp mode.
Ramp mode starts commutating through the states A through
F as shown in Table 1. This ramps up the commutation fre-
quency, and therefore the motor speed, for a fixed length of
time. This allows the motor to reach a sufficient speed for the
back EMF sampler to lock commutation onto the motor’s
back EMF. The amount of time the ML4425 stays in ramp
mode is determined by a capacitor connected to the C
RT
pin
as shown in Figure 8. C
RT
is charged by a constant 750μA
current from GND to 1.5 V until the ramp comparator trips
to end the ramp mode. This gives a fixed ramp time. C
RT
is
calculated as follows:
The rate at which the ML4425 ramps up the motor speed is
determined by a fixed 500μA current source on the SPEED
FB pin. The current sources charges up the PLL filter com-
ponents causing the VCO frequency to ramp up. During
ramp mode, the back EMF sampler is disabled to allow con-
trol of the ramping to be set only by the 500μA current
source. The ramp based on the SPEED FB filter is generally
too fast for the motor to keep up, so a capacitor from C
RR
to
SPEED FB can be added to slow down the ramping rate. The
optimal ramp rate is based on the motor and load parameters
and is can be adjusted by varying the value of C
RR
.
C
SPEEDFB1
0.25
K
M
----------
N
2
In
---------
f
VCO2
×
------------------------------------------------
×
×
=
(6a)
R
SPEEDFB
2
=
M
In
---------
×
×
f
O1
S
–
)
-------------------------------------------------
×
(6b
C
SPEEDFB2
C
SPEEDFB1
=
M
1
–
(
)
×
(6c)
C
AT
t
--------------------------------------------------------
7.5
×
10
7
–
amp
×
×
=
(7)
FB A
22
FB B
23
FB C
24
BACK
EMF
SAMPLER
VDD
500nA
SPEED
FB
C
SPEEDFB1
C
SPEEDFB2
R
SPEEDFB
20
VOLTAGE
CONTROLLED
OSCILLATOR
PHASE
LOCKED
LOOP
VCO/TACH
13
A
B
C
D
E
F
R
COMMUTATION
STATE MACHINE
C
RT
2
π
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
J
×
5
×
10
t
7
–
×
amp
×
K
V
×
MAX
=
(8)