As the most complex and technically advanced part of the mechanical components of a domestic refrigerator, the compressor determines the refrigerator’s refrigeration efficiency, energy consumption, noise, and other functional parameters. And the motor is the key to the compressor.

To increase the power density at an optimized cost while increasing the motor reliability, Geehy introduces a refrigerator compressor with APM32F030x6 series MCU. The solution can meet the requirements of refrigerator compressor system with cost-effective high performance and help designers to improve the motor performance.

APM32F030x6 Series MCU Refrigerator Compressor Solution

The whole system mainly focuses on drive motors, which can be divided into 7 major parts.

1. A rectifier converts 220V AC power to 5V-15V DC through DC-DC to power the motor circuit and MCU circuit respectively.

2. The compressor is a DC three-phase motor with a three-phase six-arm full-bridge drive, and the MCU forms a closed-loop to control the speed and steering of the motor through a 6-way PWM.

3. ADC detects the current on the U, V, and W lines of the motor for closed-loop control.

4. The MCU controls the motor speed by capturing the frequency signal from the main control system.

5. ADC monitors the power supply voltage and temperature to ensure stable system operation.

6. I2C interface reads and writes EEPROM data, and saves motor parameters, such as phase inductance, phase current, pole pairs, etc.

7. GPIO output related status indication.

Efficient, fast, and low-power drive control is the development tool of the household appliance industry, which can effectively improve motor performance, accuracy, and efficiency. The introduction of smart technology into motor control has been a major trend, and developers are using processor-centric hardware to reduce time-to-market while reducing design complexity. The APM32F030x6, an industrial-grade general-purpose MCU based on the Arm® Cortex®-M0+ core, has extended and upgraded peripheral resources and is fully optimized for reliability, stability, and power performance, effectively improving motor performance and reducing costs.