Fully-integrated single-chip 1-4 Series Li-Ion battery pack manager

New from Texas Instruments, the bq40z50-R1 battery pack manager / gas gauge incorporates patented Impedance Track technology. The fully-integrated, single-chip, pack-based solution provides a rich array of features for gas gauging, protection, and authentication for 1-series, 2-series, 3-series, and 4-series cell Li-Ion and Li-Polymer battery packs. Using its integrated high-performance analog peripherals, the bq40z50-R1 device measures and maintains an accurate record of available capacity, voltage, current, temperature, and other critical parameters in Li-Ion or Li-Polymer batteries, and reports this information to the system host controller over an SMBus v1.1 compatible interface. The bq40z50-R1 device supports TURBO BOOST mode by providing the available max power and max current to the host system. The device also supports Battery Trip Point to send a BTP interrupt signal to the host system at the pre-set state of charge thresholds. The bq40z50-R1 provides software-based 1st- and 2nd-level safety protection against overvoltage, under-voltage, over-current, short-circuit current, overload, and over-temperature conditions, as well as other pack- and cell-related faults. SHA-1 authentication, with secure memory for authentication keys, enables identification of genuine battery packs. The compact 32-lead QFN package minimizes solution cost and size for smart batteries while providing maximum functionality and safety for battery gauging applications, says the company.