PCA9629A
Fm+ I2C-bus advanced stepper motor controller
Rev. 2 — 21 March 2014
Product data sheet
1. General description
The PCA9629A is an I2C-bus controlled low-power CMOS device that provides all the
logic and control required to drive a four phase stepper motor. PCA9629A is intended to
be used with external high current drivers to drive the motor coils. The PCA9629A
supports three stepper motor drive formats: one-phase (wave drive), two-phase, and
half-step. In addition, when used as inputs, four General Purpose Input/Outputs (GPIOs)
allow sensing of logic level output from optical interrupter modules and generate
active LOW interrupt signal on the INT pin of PCA9629A. This is a useful feature in
sensing home position of motor shaft or reference for step pulses. Upon interrupt, the
PCA9629A can be programmed to automatically stop the motor, re-start motor, enable
extra steps or reverse the direction of rotation of motor.
Output wave train is programmable using control registers. The control registers are
programmed via the I2C-bus. Features built into the PCA9629A provide highly flexible
control of stepper motor, off-load bus master/micro and significantly reduce I2C-bus traffic.
These include control of step size, number of steps per single command, number of
actions from 1 to 255 or continuous rotations and direction of rotation. Re-start motor for
new speed and operation without waiting for motor stop. A ramp-up on start and/or
ramp-down on stop is also provided with re-enable ramp-up or ramp-down to change the
ramp rate curve on the fly.
The PCA9629A is available in a 16-pin TSSOP package and is specified over the
40 C to +85 C industrial temperature range.
2. Features and benefits
Generate motor coil drive phase sequence signals with four outputs for use with
external high current drivers to off-load CPU
Four balanced push-pull type outputs capable of sinking 25 mA or sourcing 25 mA for
glueless connection to external high current drivers needed to drive unipolar stepper
motor coils
Up to 1000 pF loads with 100 ns rise and fall times
Built-in 1 MHz oscillator requires no external components
Stepper motor drive control logic
One-phase (wave drive), two-phase, and half-step drive format logic level outputs
Programmable step rate: 333.3 kpps to 0.3 pps with 3 % accuracy
Programmable ramp-up on start and ramp-down to stop
Programmable re-enable ramp-up or ramp-down to change ramp rate curve on the fly
Programmable re-start motor with new speed and operation while motor is still running
Programmable motor action either multiple times (1 to 255) or continuously
Programmable loop delay timer for motor reversal mode