With the high penetration of power electronic converters in the motor drive applications, the stator phase number of electric machines can break the three-phase constraint set by the power grid. Actually, with the phase number grows, the degrees of freedom for the motor drive will increase. As a result, many advantages will emerge, such as reduced per phase power rating, improved reliability and increased modulation degrees of Pulse Width Modulation (PWM). This talk shows different types of multiphase machines and drive systems, and discusses the utilization of increased degrees of freedom in the coordination of multiple stator phases, fault-tolerant control strategy, optimized PWM techniques in the multiphase drive applications.