Multicell battery gas guage measures to within 1% accuracy

30th October 2013

Staff Reporter

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Datasheet

Enabling direct measurements of 3.6V to 20V battery stacks, Linear have today announced the LTC2943 multicell battery gas gauge. The LTC2943 accurately assess battery SoC, due to being able to measure charge, voltage, current and temperature to within 1% accuracy. Total current consumption is minimized and measurement accuracy is preserved with the LTC2943 requiring no level shifting circuitry on the supply and measurement pins in order to interface with multicell voltages.

Suited for multicell applications, battery current is measured by monitoring the voltage across an external, high side sense resistor and integrating this information to infer charge. A bidirectional analog integrator accommodates either current polarity (battery charge or discharge), and a programmable prescaler allows for a wide range of battery capacities. Charge, voltage, current and temperature information are communicated to the host system over an I²C/SMBus-compatible 2-wire interface that is also used to configure the gas gauge. The host can program high and low thresholds for all measured parameters, which if tripped, signal an alert using either the SMBus alert protocol or by setting a register flag.

Offered in commercial and industrial versions, the LTC2943 supports operating temperature ranges from 0°C to 70°C and -40°C to 85°C, respectively. Priced at $2.35 each in 1,000 piece quantities, the LTC2943 is available today in a small RoHS compliant, 8-pin 3mm x 3mm DFN package.