The VN9004AJTR from STMicroelectronics is an Automotive Qualified Single Channel High-Side Gate Driver IC that has been designed for extremely low voltage operation for deep cold cranking applications. It requires an input voltage of 4 - 28 V. It includes an integrated gate driver circuit, Enhancement Mode MOSFET, control and diagnostic function, VCC-GND clamping circuit, current sense function, current limitation, reverse battery, and other protection circuitries. The gate driver IC is manufactured using ST’s proprietary VIPower M0-9 technology and can drive 12 V automotive grounded loads through 3 V and 5 V CMOS-compatible interfaces, providing both protection and diagnostic capabilities. It integrates a multi-function, multiplexed analog output pin that is dedicated to delivering sophisticated diagnostic functions such as high-precision proportional load current sense, supply voltage feedback, and chip temperature sensing.
The AEC-Q100 qualified driver also offers other current sensing functionalities such as OFF-state open-load detection (with external pull-up), overload and short-to-ground (power limitation) indication, output short-to-Vcc detection, and sense enable/disable. It has a FaultRST pin that unlatches the output during fault conditions or completely disables the latch-off functionality. The IC consists of the under-voltage shutdown, over-voltage clamp, load current limitation, self-limiting of fast thermal transients, configurable latch-off on over-temperature, and electrostatic discharge protection to prevent false trigger or over-current-related damages. It is available in a surface-mount package that measures 4.9 x 6.0 x 1.7 mm and is ideal for automotive smart power distribution, glow plugs, heating systems, DC motors, relay replacement, and high-power resistive and inductive actuator applications.
