Method and apparatus for driving a brushless D.C. motor

1. A method for driving a brushless D.C. motor having a rotor and a plurality of stator windings that define a stator field when driven by a bridge circuit, where a microprocessor drives the bridge circuit using pulse-width modulation logic, the method comprising:

triggering a commutation of the stator field;

monitoring voltage induced by rotation of rotor in a non-energized stator winding to determine whether the induced voltage reaches, or is below a threshold voltage;

determining a delay time between triggering the commutation of the stator field and the voltage reaching, or being below the threshold voltage; and

using the determined delay time to establish a triggering time point for a next commutation of the stator field;

where a multi-threshold comparator logic is used for the monitoring of the induced voltage, where the multi-threshold comparator logic is integrated in to the microprocessor, and is synchronized with the pulse-width modulation logic, and where the synchronization is produced via a fast shutdown logic integrated within the microprocessor.

2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising generating an interrupt using the fast shutdown logic, where the interrupt initiates an associated fast shutdown service routine that sets a time that has passed since the last commutation as the delay time between a zero passage of a BEMF and a next commutation time point by programming a timer.

3. The method of claim 2 , further comprising triggering an interrupt using the timer after the time expires.

4. The method of claim 3 , where the interrupt initiates an associated timer interrupt service routine, within which the timer is started again, executes a new commutation step, and the multi-threshold comparator logic associated with the new commutation step is configured for detecting a zero passage of the BEMF.

5. The method of claim 4 , where the BEMF voltage is evaluated during the time that the pulse-width modulation is turned on.

6. A microprocessor for driving a brushless multiphase electric motor via a bridge circuit, comprising:

pulse-width modulation logic that includes a plurality of pulse-width modulation modules for each phase of the motor, each pulse-width modulation module providing an output signal for controlling the bridge circuit;

shutdown logic that includes a shutdown module for each phase of the motor, each fast shutdown module receiving one of the output signals from the pulse-width modulation modules, and comparing a signal applied at a measurement input to a programmable reference value; and

a multi-threshold comparator that includes a multi-threshold comparator module for each phase of the motor, each multi-threshold comparator module comparing an input signal to a reference value.