Hello everyone, I am trying to use the PWD13F60 full bridge driver IC to drive an acoustic transducer. I am using the corresponding evaluation board for test purposes. I have a question about the IC. What exactly is the purpose of the SENSE pins?

[CGünt.1]

I noticed the pads of these pins are very small. I'm a bit worried this is critical with high-current thoughput. For my application current peaks might exceed >5A for couple us. Pads like GND, VS and OUT are very large in comparison..

[Cristiana SCARAMEL]

Hello @Christoph Günther​ and welcome to the ST Community.

The SENSEx pin and relative exposed PADs, are connected to the low side MOSFET source for each half bridge (as shown in the PWD13F60 datasheet).

If you are using the EVALPWD13F60 evaluation board, you have to keep in mind that it has been designed to drive loads up to 2 Arms (without forced airflow cooling).

The actual board current rating is limited by dissipation and the maximum dissipation could be increased depending on the cooling techniques (e.g. heatsink, forced-air flow).

Let me know if these info are useful to you, if yes please "Select as Best" label to close the topic.