STMicroelectronics reveals precision digital power monitor

22nd November 2023

Harry Fowle

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STMicroelectronics has introduced the TSC1641 precision digital current, voltage, and power monitor with high-precision input channels and support for the MIPI I3C advanced bus interface.

The TSC1641 helps optimise energy use and reliability in industrial battery packs, power inverters, DC power supplies, data-centre and telecom equipment, and power tools, among other applications. The IC monitors DC current and DC voltage simultaneously through a dual-channel 16-bit analog-to-digital converter (ADC) and computes power internally. Synchronising the current and voltage measurements allows highly accurate power calculations.

With I2C and SMBus host communications, in addition to MIPI I3C, the new device reports measurements and warns of excessively high or low current, voltage, power, and temperature to prevent circuit damage. The IC also provides an alert pin to indicate warnings and saves external components by integrating the sensor for temperature monitoring.

With a voltage-measurement range up to 60V, the TSC1641 can be used in a wide variety of industrial settings. Monitoring current with an external shunt resistor allows flexibility to perform high-side, low-side, and bi-directional measurements. Drawing just 50nA in shutdown mode ensures minimal impact on the overall system power consumption.

The MIPI I3C interface allows designers to connect the TSC1641 directly to state-of-the-art microcontrollers such as ST’s STM32H5 series, to assist system supervision. The interface supports data rates up to 12.5MHz and requires no pull-up resistors, which helps reduce the bill of materials and saves board space.

The TSC1641 is specified over the temperature range from -40°C to 125°C and is in production now. Prices start from $1.83 for quantities of 1000 pieces in the 3.0 x 3.0mm plastic DFN10 package.

Customers can begin exploring the TSC1641 immediately using the STEVAL-DIGAFEV1 evaluation board, available now on st.com for $36.00. The board can operate in standalone mode or can be connected to a NUCLEO-H503RB STM32 microcontroller development board. A graphical user interface (STSW-DIGAFEV1GUI) to configure the TSC1641 and sample firmware (STSW-DIGAFEV1FW) are available for the NUCLEO-H503RB, which supports MIPI I3C communication.