STMicroelectronics' L6472 is an advanced fully integrated solution suitable for driving two-phase bipolar stepper motors with microstepping. It integrates a dual low RDS(on) DMOS full bridge with all of the power switches equipped with an accurate on-chip current sensing circuitry, suitable for non-dissipative current control and overcurrent protection. Thanks to a new current control, a 1/16 microstepping is achieved through an adaptive decay mode that outperforms traditional implementations. The digital control core can generate user defined motion profiles with acceleration, deceleration, speed, or target position, and is easily programmed through a dedicated register set.

All application commands and data registers, including those used to set analog values (i.e. current control value, current protection trip point, dead time, etc.) are sent through a standard 5-Mbit/s SPI.

A rich set of protections (thermal, low bus voltage, overcurrent) makes the L6472 "bullet-proof", as required by the most demanding motor control applications.