Servo motor drive and control

A servo drive is used to power electric servomechanisms by receiving a command signal from a control system, amplifying it, and transmitting the electric current to a servo motor. It allows producing motion that is proportional to the command signal. A servo drive monitors the mechanism's feedback signal. It also continually adjusts in case of deviation from the expected behavior. With this feedback, the commanded motion's accuracy can be ensured, and unwanted motion can be detected. A unique characteristic of the servo motor is that it consumes power while rotating to the desired position and then rests upon arrival.

Infineon offers you a broad portfolio of semiconductors for your servo motor design ranging from several hundred watts to several hundred-kilo watts applications. Our products are specially designed for use in Robotics, Material handling or machine tools, and many more to reach high reliability, longer lifecycle, high position accuracy, and fast response without overshoot.

Infineon offers you the tailor-made solution for your servo drives application with a wide variety of package types. In the lower power range up to 3 KW IPM, discrete and modules can be used. In this power range, silicon carbide MOSFETs offer optimal solutions for integrated drives. Alternatively, our IGBT7 technology is optimally designed for servo drives. With increasing motor power the share of modules for power semiconductors increases. Our Easy, Econo, EconoDUAL™3 and PrimePACK™ families offer customized solutions for every motor power class. If you aim a longer lifetime the PrimePACK™.XT portfolio is your choice.

For high-speed drives and inverter integration, our CoolSiC™ MOSFETs are an attractive solution because they reduce switching and conduction losses, especially under partial load conditions. Our broad EiceDRIVER™ portfolio scales from basic to advanced functionality. The EiceDRIVER™ X3 Enhanced isolated gate driver portfolio now includes the X3 Analog 1ED34xx family and the X3 Digital 1ED38xx family with DESAT, Miller Clamp, soft-off, and I2C configurability.

Servo drives require the highest standards of control accuracy. Our 32-bit XMC™ industrial microcontrollers based on Arm® Cortex®-M offer optimally matched solutions. For Industry 4.0 connectivity, we offer OPTIGA™ Trust security solutions. In addition, our high-performance memories for embedded systems offer high flexibility regarding the required memory performance.

With more automation being used across industries, there is a correspondingly increased demand for servo motors. Their ability to combine precise motion control with high torque levels makes them the perfect fit for automation and robotics.

Using its manufacturing expertise and long experience, Infineon has developed a SiC trench technology that offers higher performance than the IGBT but with comparable robustness, e.g., short-circuit time of 2 µs or even 3 µs. Infineon's CoolSiC™ MOSFETs also address potential problems inherent in SiC devices, such as unwanted capacitive turn-on. Furthermore, the SiC MOSFETs are available in the industry-standard TO247-3 package, and now with even better switching performance, in the TO247- 4 package. Besides these TO-packages, the SiC MOSFET is also available in Easy 1B and Easy 2B packages.

The 1200 V CoolSiC™ MOSFET offers up to 80% lower switching losses than the corresponding IGBT alternative, with the additional advantage of the losses being independent of temperature.

As a result, a drive solution using CoolSiC™ MOSFET technology can achieve as much as a 50% reduction in losses (assuming similar dv/dt), based on lower recovery, turn-on, turn-off, and on-state losses. The CoolSiC™ MOSFET also has lower conduction losses than an IGBT, especially under light-load conditions.

In addition to the overall higher efficiency and lower losses, the higher switching frequencies enabled by SiC technology directly benefit both external and integrated servo drives in more dynamic control environments. It is possible due to the faster response of the motor current under changing motor load conditions.