Product category:
Power Supply ICs and Controllers
News Release from: Xicor | Subject: X3101
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial
Team on 13 December 2002
Smart battery manager maximises notebook
cell life
Novel battery management controllers integrate cell balancing and gas gauge electronics that monitor individual cell voltages and currents for the safe operation of battery packs used in notebooks.
Xicor has developed a new generation of battery management controllers with integrated cell balancing and gas gauge electronics that monitor individual cell voltages and currents for the safe operation of battery packs used in notebooks and industrial applications The X3101 supports designs to meet SBS (smart battery system) standards for the designs of Li-ion (lithium ion) and Li-polymer (lithium polymer) batteries where cell balancing is crucial for proper charging to maximise battery capacity and lifetime
This article was originally published on Electronicstalk on 24 Jan 2002 at 8.00am (UK)
Related stories
Clock chip takes on supervisory functions
Xicor has added two new members to its integrated real time clock (RTC) product family.
Reference design makes for powerful basestations
Xicor has teamed up with Motorola to provide radio-frequency power amplifier (RFPA) reference platforms for GSM, Edge and W-CDMA cellular basestation applications.
In operation, the X3101 measures the voltage in each cell and reports to a separate microcontroller.
The device also accepts commands from a microcontroller to control charge circuits to supply different currents to each cell for proper charging to maintain uniform power capacity.
This circuitry includes FET control for charge and discharge, and voltage level translation to gauge 12 and 16V battery packs down to individual cell capacity.
Further reading
CPU supervisor has user-programmable functions
Featuring user-programmable functions to give system designers maximum flexibility to tune device parameters to meet exact system requirements, Xicor's X40626 is a dual-voltage CPU supervisor.
Architecture provides adaptive bias and control
Xicor has unveiled ODIN, a new architecture for high-performance adaptive closed loop control.
Clocks take memory and more onboard
Xicor has a three-member family of real time clock products that combine advanced real time clock/calendar, high density embedded EEPROM and advanced system management building block functions.
Also included is a cell charge enable circuit that prevents charging of bad cells.
For gas gauge and protection the X3101 has voltage and current monitors with safety control circuits.
Integrated differential amplifiers and current sense amplifiers are used to monitor overvoltage and undervoltage for each individual cell, and overcurrent for the entire battery pack.
Automatic protection circuits control the charge and discharge FETs.
A built-in programmable gain amplifier allows for a wide range of current-sensing resolution, and an analogue crossbar switch cancels charge/discharge offsets to ensure accurate current measurement.
The programmable overvoltage and undervoltage voltage thresholds can be adjusted.
A sample rate timer provides for periodic overvoltage and undervoltage measurement.
The device includes circuits for sleep and wake and has modes to support battery charging and discharging.
In sleep mode, the battery pack electronics draw less than 1uA of current.
The X3101 has built-in EEPROM to support SBS standards and data structure.
Additional memory is used to store temperature sensor calibration tables, cell physical characteristics for software gas gauging, manufacturing information (serial numbers, manufacturing data, cell chemistry), battery pack and cell history (charge/discharge cycles, extreme conditions data, age).
Memory block lock circuits are included to protect valuable memory locations.
Other circuits are included to reduce external components namely, integrated voltage regulator, analogue multiplexer for the ADC front-end, and a load test current generator used during overcurrent protection mode.
The device uses 24V operation to handle surge currents and battery packs up to 16.8V.
Production samples are available for the X3101 in 28-lead TSSOP packaging.
The device is a three-cell battery management version of Xicor's previously released X3100, a four-cell battery management solution.
The X3100 is successfully designed into many after-market battery packs for key notebook manufacturers and several industrial and medical applications.
Similarly the X3101 is currently being designed into several applications that include prismatic battery packs for notebooks, portable medical devices, and portable instrumentation equipment.
The device's flexibility to support software implementation of gas gauge algorithms allows upgrades to battery capacity calculations during manufacturing.
For example, battery pack designers can compensate for variations in cell chemistry vs.
temperature.
This provides design flexibility and the proliferation of quick-to-market battery pack designs.
• Xicor: contact details and other news
• Email this article to a colleague
• Register for the free Electronicstalk email newsletter
• Electronicstalk Home Page
Search the Pro-Talk network of sites
