TI Launches Industry's Highest Accuracy Lithium-Ion Battery Monitor for EVs, Power Tools, and UPS

Intelligent ICs that improve battery pack life, available energy, and system safety

TI Korea (CEO Jaejin Kim, www.ti.com/ww/kr ) May 24, 2011 – TI has launched a battery management IC that extends the lifespan of rechargeable lithium-ion battery packs and maximizes available energy in hybrid and electric vehicle, power tool, and UPS (Uninterruptible Power Source) applications. This stackable bq76PL536 battery monitor/balancer/protector integrates an Analog-to-Digital Converter (ADC) to enable individual cell voltage monitoring, overheat protection, cell balancing, and chip-to-chip isolated communication. The device intelligently measures battery cell voltage with 1mV accuracy, which is required for new lithium materials. (To order the product, refer to www.ti.com/bq76pl536-pr ; for more information on the AEC-Q100 automotive-certified version, refer to www.ti.com/bq76pl536Q1-pr )

In addition, the bq76PL536 provides secondary protection against overvoltage, undervoltage, and overheating conditions. If safety thresholds are exceeded, the device is configured to output faults and warnings regardless of the communication channel status. No separate external components are required to configure and operate these protection functions.

Key Features and Advantages
• Improves the accuracy of gauging battery charge, cell balancing efficiency, system safety, etc. with ±1mV rated voltage measurement precision.
• Enhanced safety without additional component costs by integrating secondary protection functions for overvoltage, undervoltage, and overheating conditions
• Up to 192 stacks and monitoring possible without additional isolation components between ICs
• Provides reliable communication between each bq76PL536 via a high-speed 1 Mb/s SPI (serial peripheral interface) bus
• AEC-100 Production Flow, Reliability, and Testing for Automotive Applications
• The cell balancing driver maintains State of Charge (SOC) and capacity balancing, extending the available capacity and lifespan of the battery pack.

Tools and Support
TI provides various tools and support to enable rapid implementation of the bq76PL536 device family.
• bq76pl536EVM-3 Evaluation Module: www.ti.com/bq76pl536evm-pr
• bq76pl536EVM-3 Evaluation Software: www.ti.com/bq76pl536evm3software-pr
• bq76536PGM-1 Programmable Board: www.ti.com/bq76pl536board-pr
• bq76pl536-1 Programmable Software:=_blank>www.ti.com/bq765pl536progsoft-pr

Supply timing and price
The bq76PL536 and bq76PL536-Q1 battery monitors are available in a 64-pin HTQFP package, and the price is $4.30 per 1,000-unit quantity.

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