Atmel's new battery management chipset

SAN FRANCISCO, USA: A new Li-Ion battery management chipset which could find use in high-cell-count automotive and industrial applications such as electrical and hybrid vehicles, e-bikes or uninterruptible power supplies has debuted from the Atmel stables.

The ATA6870/71 chipset from Atmel Corporation, expected to offer cost savings of up to 60 per cent compared with the existing solutions, boasts of 30-V CMOS technology. With a hot plug-in capability, six integrated AD converters with a cut-off frequency lower than 30 Hz and a stackable microcontroller power supply.

The chipset requires less external components than comparable solutions, said a review report. Dubbed as the industry's first battery management IC to include all functionalities required to control a high-cell-count Li-Ion battery, it has also been provided with a special safety strategy via a secondary protection device, the ATA6871.

The ATA6871 boasts of the highest available safety level for Li-Ion battery monitoring, said an EETimes report. It added that both the ATA6870 and the ATA6871 circuits monitor six-battery cells and can be stacked up to 16 times.

The ATA6870 also includes an 8-bit checksum monitor that helps further increase data communication robustness, the report added.

Atmel has hit the market with samples of the new ATA6870 and ATA6871 ICs in small QFN48/SSO28 packages. Price tags start at $2.95 for the ATA6870 and $1.31 for the ATA6871 at 10k-piece quantities, it added.