In summary, stepper motors are commonly used because they are low cost and highly reliable as they have no brushes or contacts inside the motor. These stepper motors can be controlled with a stepper motor controller to off-load the microcontroller and reduce bus traffic. The NXP’s stepper motor controller, PCA9629, has the ability to control the ramp-up and ramp-down rates, step size, number of steps per command, number of full rotation, and direction of rotation. The device also includes four GPIO pins that can be configured to monitor external signals or control other peripherals. NXP provides several support tools that will help customers to design in the PCA9629 into different applications.