ON Semiconductor’s solutions for power supply, motor drive and discrete components used in automotive automatic air conditioners

Air conditioning is a standard comfort feature in today’s car design. Functionally, today’s automotive air conditioners actually integrate heating, cooling, and ventilation functions into an automotive heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) system (herein referred to as “automotive air conditioners”). In terms of adjustment methods, automotive air conditioners include manual air conditioners, semi-automatic air conditioners and automatic air conditioners. This article will focus on automotive automatic air conditioning, and introduce ON semiconductor‘s corresponding power supply, motor drive and discrete components, etc., to help designers choose suitable products for automotive automatic air conditioning design.

Automotive air conditioning systems include different subsystems such as heating and ventilation systems, air conditioning refrigeration, and Electronic control units (ECUs). In the heating and ventilation subsystem, fresh air is channeled from the outside to the interior of the cabin, enhancing passenger comfort and safety. Incoming air flows through small heating cores that connect to the engine’s cooling system. The air conditioning and refrigeration subsystem transfers the heat inside the car to the outside air through continuous evaporation and condensation, which reduces the temperature inside the car and also reduces the humidity. Figure 1 is a typical car automatic air conditioning interface, and Figure 2 is a system architecture diagram.