Fuel gauge ICs take LDOs onboard

A Texas Instruments (April 2006-) product story

Edited by the Electronicstalk editorial team Jan 30, 2008

System-side and battery pack-side fuel gauges predict battery life with 99% accuracy to extend runtime, protect data and provide a better user experience.

Texas Instruments has released two new battery fuel gauge devices with integrated low-dropout regulators (LDOs) for smart phones, mobile Internet devices and media players with embedded or removable batteries.

The new system-side and battery pack-side fuel gauges build on TI's popular family of integrated circuits (ICs) that predict battery life with 99% accuracy to extend runtime, protect data and provide a better user experience.

The bq27510 system-side battery fuel gauge with Impedance Track technology incorporates a LDO and can be powered directly from the battery cell with less external circuitry, regardless of system voltage.

In addition to simplifying design of the fuel gauge into the host system, it accurately measures remaining capacity data from a device's single-cell Li-ion battery to predict remaining battery capacity under all conditions, even as a battery ages.

In addition to the system-side battery fuel gauges, TI's new bq27540 device resides directly on the embedded or removable battery pack to intelligently manage available power that resides in the battery.

The bq27540 will support SDQ, HDQ and I2C communication protocols to allow the system to read important information from the battery.

Accurate fuel gauging helps systems intelligently manage available power, alert the user of system operating-time, and extend the runtime of the system as far as possible.

Mobile application processors, such as TI's OMAP 3 platform with SmartReflex power and performance technologies, rely on accurate battery data to better optimise the mobile device's complete power operating system.

As with the bq27500, the bq27510 and bq27540 provide an accurate reserve energy warning, which allows a system to save data to nonvolatile memory before the system shuts down, so work is not lost when a battery runs to empty.

The bq27510 and bq27540 are sampling now, with volume production expected in the second quarter of 2008.

Available in space-saving 12-pin 2.5 x 4mm SON packages, both devices have a suggested retail price of US $1.35 each in 1000-piece quantities.