Charge management IC prolongs battery life

Analog Devices has announced the MAX17330 battery management integrated circuit ( IC) with integrated charge indicator and advanced protection system for single-cell lithium-ion/polymer batteries, which offers longer battery life than similar products for consumer applications.

The new IC expands ADI's portfolio of battery management components, offering some of the highest accuracy in the industry for the automotive and industrial markets.

Compared to similar products, the MAX17330 significantly extends battery life and monitors internal cell self-discharge risks, reducing the size of the solution for single cell battery powered products.

ADI's proprietary AccuCharge and ModelGauge technologies enable a complete charge and discharge process, increasing the battery life of wearable devices, electro-medical devices, fitness trackers, home and building automation sensors, handheld computers and terminals.

The MAX17330 also simplifies battery management for devices that use parallel cells, such as tablets, foldable smartphones, and augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) glasses.

Conventional battery charging ICs use inconsistent techniques that do not monitor the actual state of charge and therefore require additional margin to protect the battery.

This prevents the battery from being charged to its maximum available capacity.

Many modern devices require several physically separated cells in order to optimise weight distribution, improving ergonomics and the user experience.

This leads to difficulties during the charging process, as the batteries may not have the same impedance and may also have different capacities or initial states.

The MAX17330 addresses these challenges by controlling the charging process through the integrated charge indicator for each individual cell.

Features

• Increased maximum charge level and thus increased battery life: the charging process is 20% more precise thanks to AccuCharge technology.
• Increased charge indicator accuracy: the ModelGauge m5 algorithm provides a 40% more accurate battery state of charge (SOC) value; the EZ configuration also eliminates the need to characterise the battery.
• Smaller size: The wafer level package (WLP) allows the charger, charge indicator, protection circuit and authentication functionality to be integrated in a single component, reducing the total size of the solution by 36% compared to similar solutions.

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