eInfochips and NXP collaborate to enable battery energy storage customers

eInfochips and NXP have jointly developed a production-grade, modular and flexible energy storage reference platform capable of handling up to 1500 V and 500 A. This includes the complete hardware design, all layers of embedded firmware, and functional safety documentation that meets Safety Integrity Level (SIL)-2 and Class B of IEC 61508 and IEC 60730 standards, pre-certified by SGS-TÜV in Germany.

The Battery Energy Storage (BESS) market is quickly evolving and combined with high security, reliability and functional safety requirements, has customers looking for support to bring their systems to market more quickly. The collaboration aims to help customers navigate these challenges, while increasing the adoption of electrification using solutions from NXP Semiconductors across industrial applications.

This turnkey solution is based on NXP’s BMS chipset (18-c battery cell controller MC33774, TPL gateway MC33665, battery junction box controller MC33772C), battery management software hosted by NXP’s S32K3 microcontroller with lockstep cores and other key components such as H-bridge drivers and high-side switches.  In addition, system-level functional safety is enabled by NXP’s power management controller.

To provide ongoing technical and functional safety support for BESS designs, eInfochips will provide engineering and functional safety support for NXP’s direct and channel customers globally.

“We are excited to expand our collaboration with NXP Semiconductors,” said Murdoch Fitzgerald, vice president of global engineering and design services at Arrow Electronics. “Combining eInfochips’ strength in engineering and design services with NXP Semiconductors’ innovative products will help customers deliver leading edge BESS and accelerate and derisk their design cycles.”

“This collaboration with eInfochips represents a significant step to enable more teams to confidently embrace high-voltage energy storage design projects,” said Alexandra Dopplinger, senior director, power and energy, industrial and IoT systems engineering and marketing, at NXP Semiconductors. “Customers are especially excited to leverage the safety libraries and documentation pre-certified for IEC 61508 SIL-2 and IEC 60730 Class B functional safety in this 1500 V Battery Energy Storage Reference Design.”

The first reference design as part of this collaboration, a production-grade high-voltage energy storage system reference development platform, was launched and demonstrated at Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in early 2024.