L298N vs L293D vs TB6612FNG: Which Motor Driver Is Best?

Written and fact-checked by Compoden's engineering team, India. Current ratings, voltage-drop behaviour and board sizes below are the published characteristics of each chip family. Prices are read live from our own catalogue for the parts we stock. Published 24 August 2026 · Last updated 24 August 2026.

For most modern robots the TB6612FNG is the technically better choice because it runs cooler and wastes far less voltage than the older L298N or L293D — but the L298N is still a completely reasonable pick for a cheap, high-current hobby build, and it's the one you can actually order from Compoden today. Your real decision comes down to three things: how much current your motors draw, how much battery efficiency matters, and what's actually in stock when you're ready to build.

How do these three motor drivers actually differ?

All three are dual H-bridge drivers, meaning each can independently run two DC motors (or one stepper) in both directions from digital control signals. The differences that matter are in current capability, switching technology, and how much voltage each one wastes getting power to the motor:

• L293D — the classic beginner chip. Uses bipolar transistors internally, so it drops a meaningful amount of voltage and gets warm under load. Rated for roughly 0.6A per channel continuous — fine for small motors, not for anything that draws real current.
• L298N — a higher-current module, almost always sold on a breakout board with its own heatsink. Also bipolar internally, so it shares the L293D's voltage-drop problem (often 2–3V lost before the motor sees any power), but its ~2A per channel rating makes it the practical choice once motors get bigger than the L293D can handle.
• TB6612FNG — a modern MOSFET-based driver. MOSFETs switch with far less resistance than the L293D/L298N's bipolar transistors, which is why it runs cool and wastes very little voltage — but it's rated for less peak current (~1.2A per channel) than the L298N, so it isn't automatically the "better" chip for every build, just the more efficient one within its current range.

Quick comparison

Feature	L293D	L298N	TB6612FNG
Switching technology	Bipolar	Bipolar	MOSFET
Continuous current per channel	~0.6A	~2A	~1.2A
Typical voltage drop	High (~1.5-2V)	High (~2-3V)	Low (~0.2-0.5V)
Heat under sustained load	High	High (needs heatsink)	Low
Board footprint	Small (shield form)	Large	Small
Stocked at Compoden	Yes — ₹150	Yes — ₹180	Not currently

Why does voltage drop matter more than the current rating on a battery robot?

On a battery-powered robot, the L298N's 2–3V drop is voltage the motor never sees at all — feed it from a small battery pack and your motors run visibly weaker than the same pack would deliver through a more efficient driver, because a meaningful fraction of every volt is being lost inside the chip as heat before it ever reaches the motor terminals. The TB6612FNG hands almost all of the supply voltage straight to the motor, so identical battery, identical motors, but a noticeably longer run time and stronger torque at low speed — which is exactly why competitive line-following and battery-endurance robots gravitate toward MOSFET-based drivers like the TB6612FNG even when their current rating is lower than the L298N's.

Which driver should you actually choose?

1. Battery-powered robots and line followers: the TB6612FNG is the right chip on paper — its efficiency directly extends run time on a small pack. It is not in Compoden's catalogue at the time of writing, so budget to source it from elsewhere if your build genuinely needs the efficiency.
2. Big motors, a wall-adapter build, or a tight budget: the L298N is a completely sound choice and it's in stock at Compoden for ₹180. It's cheap, rugged, and handles more current than either alternative — add the heatsink it ships with and expect some voltage loss, which matters far less on a build powered from a wall adapter than on a small battery.
3. Very small toy motors, or learning the basics: the L293D (₹150, shield form) still does the job and is the simplest to wire onto an Arduino Uno.

Honestly, if you're a beginner wiring your first chassis and running off a wall adapter rather than a small battery, the L298N is a sensible, forgiving, currently orderable starting point. The TB6612FNG is the better chip on a spec sheet, but "the better chip we don't sell yet" is worse advice than "the good chip you can actually buy today" — save the TB6612FNG search for when you're specifically chasing battery efficiency on a small robot and are prepared to source it separately.

A quick safety note

Always keep a flyback/back-EMF path in mind — these drivers include internal protection diodes, but keep motor wiring tidy and away from signal lines regardless. Never exceed the rated current for sustained operation, and always disconnect power before rewiring anything. Motors can stall and spike current well above their normal running figure, so size your driver choice for the stall current your motor can pull, not its idle running current. This matters most right at the moment a robot starts moving from rest — the initial stall current on a small DC gear motor can briefly run several times higher than its steady rolling current, which is the single most common reason a driver that "should" have enough headroom on paper still browns out or resets the whole board on startup.

Frequently asked questions

Can I use an L298N and later swap to a TB6612FNG without rewiring everything?
Mostly yes — both are dual H-bridge drivers controlled the same way (direction pins plus a PWM speed pin per motor), so the firmware logic transfers directly. The physical wiring changes because the two boards have different pinouts and footprints.

L298N garam kyun ho jata hai? (Why does the L298N get hot?)
Because it uses older bipolar-transistor switching, which wastes 2-3V as heat inside the chip for every motor it drives — that's why L298N modules always ship with a heatsink attached, and why it's worth keeping airflow around it on a sustained-load build.

Is the L293D enough for a basic robot car?
For small, light hobby motors — yes. For anything heavier, or for two motors drawing meaningful current simultaneously, its ~0.6A per channel rating becomes the limiting factor and the L298N is the safer choice.

Does Compoden sell the TB6612FNG?
Not at the time of writing. It's a genuinely good chip and worth knowing about, but the L298N and L293D are the motor drivers currently stocked and shippable from Compoden.

Related reading: Build a Line Follower Robot (uses an L298N in a real build), and Build a Phone-Controlled Robot Car with ESP32 (same driver family in practice).

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