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Feature Article

Simplify Peripheral Connectivity and Extend Battery Life In Mobile Applications

Timothy Hegarty, Principal Applications Engineer, Texas Instruments

With the advent of and voracious demand for new handset, tablet and notebook devices with lower profile and smaller form factors, engineers called upon to design solutions that fit into the required footprint dimensions face a particularly arduous task. Furthermore, consumers, while seeking increased functionality and features with their portable devices, place a substantial premium on battery capacity by seeking longer run time between charge cycles. <read more>

Battery Blog

The Path of Least Resistance

Upal Sengupta, Staff Applications Engineer, Texas Instruments – Battery Management Solutions

One (almost literal) “rule of thumb,” which I learned some years ago, was that if you couldn’t hold your finger on an IC for more than one second without feeling pain, the chip’s case temperature was probably above 50ºC.  While I don’t recommend this technique as a substitute for doing actual thermal measurements on your PCB, it was an interesting discovery at the time… and of course it was also easier to do when IC packages were a little bigger than they are now. <read more>

Chroma Programmable Battery Charge and Discharge Tester

Chroma’s 17011 programmable battery charge and discharge tester is designed to test any chemistry battery cells and Electric Double Layer Capacitors (EDLC). It is designed to support high volume manufacturing, laboratory and R&D and is capable of supporting various charge/discharge test modes such as CV (Constant Voltage), CC (Constant Current), CP (Constant Power) and DCIR testing which are required to verify the reliability of the cell (battery cycle life test).
• High precision measurements to 0.02% accuracy
• High sampling rate (Battery Mode - 100ms)
• Full discharge down to 0V
• Real time data acquisition and log (Q, Vt, It, time)
• Step termination status (Q, V_end, I_end, time)
• Polarity and contact safety check

BatteryPro Software
BatteryPro is a GUI platform that gives the user a flexible, powerful and cost effective test system for battery testing; it also includes a pre-written recipe library covering some basic industry standard battery tests. BatteryPro utilizes the system to create cycling tests from basic charge or discharge to complex drive cycle testing for each channel or channel groups. Thermal chamber control can be integrated into a profile and triggered by time or test results yielding a dynamic profile.

For more information, please contact as atesales@chromausa.com  or visit www.chromausa.com.

Microchip Launches 8-bit Microcontrollers with Integrated Configurable Logic in 6- to 20-pin Packages
The PIC10F(LF)32X and PIC1XF(LF)150X MCUs each feature new peripherals, including Configurable Logic Cells (CLCs), Complementary Waveform Generators (CWGs) and Numerically Controlled Oscillators (NCOs), enabling functionality that was not possible before with low pincount MCUs. These general-purpose MCUs enable designers to enhance the functionality, reduce design size, and decrease the cost and power consumption of products. <read more>

Jackery Launches Powerful Rechargeable Battery
Jackery, a provider of premium rechargeable battery products for mobile devices, has launched Jackery Giant, a product that features up to 220 hours of extra operational time. <read more>

Logic PD Launches Interactive Battery Power Design Tool for Product Designers
Logic PD has introduced a free, interactive battery power design tool to help product designers and developers predetermine the battery power requirements for new products. Product dimensions, performance and battery power are critical factors when designing for today’s portable device. <read more>

Eltek has added the modular IBB-250WM wall mount DC power system to its family of Industrial Building Block (IBB) power systems. The IBB-250WM enables Eltek to fulfill an important need within the North American industrial power market for highly reliable DC power in compact, lighter-weight packages for applications such as power generation and distribution, railways, mining, oil and gas extraction, maritime, chemical processing and others. <read more>

ABB Launches Cost-Effective 20 kW DC Fast Charger
ABB has launched the Terra SmartConnect (SC), a product that will improve the business case for installing electric-vehicle (EV) fast chargers throughout North America. The Terra SC will be available for delivery in the Americas in the second quarter. Initial shipments will support the CHAdeMO fast-charging standard, with SAE / Combined Charging System units available later this year. <read more>

A 250 mA Wide VIN Range Buck-Boost Charge Pump Offers Low Conducted and Radiated Noise
Linear Technology Corp. has released the LTC3245, a versatile 250 mA high voltage buck-boost charge pump. The LTC3245 uses switched capacitor fractional conversion to maintain regulation over a wide range of input voltage from 2.7 V to 38 V and produces a regulated output of 3.3 V, 5 V or adjustable (2.5 V to 5 V). <read more>

Enstorage Goes Live with A 50 KW, Grid Connected HBr Flow Battery
EnStorage, Inc., a developer of large scale electricity storage solutions, has produced the first ever grid connected Hydrogen-Bromine (HBr) flow battery. The 50 KW battery was connected at the company’s test site in southern Israel and provides up to 100 KWh of energy. <read more>

A Large and Powerful Redox Flow Battery
More and more electricity is being generated from intermittent sources of power, such as solar and wind energy. Powerful electric energy storage devices are necessary to level out corresponding irregularities in the power supply. Fraunhofer scientists have made a breakthrough with their development of a redox flow battery that reaches stack power up to 25 kW, with a cell size of 0.5 square meters. This is eight times larger than the previous A4-sized systems. <read more>

Boeing Provides Details on 787 Battery Improvements
Boeing has released a comprehensive set of improvements that will add several layers of additional safety features to the lithium-ion batteries on 787 commercial jetliners are in production and could be ready for initial installation within the next few weeks. New enclosures for 787 batteries also are being built and will be installed in airplanes in the weeks ahead. <read more>