Intersil’s 12-Cell Li-ion Battery Pack Monitor Protects HEV Battery Systems

Intersil Corp., a globally celebrated supplier of advanced power management and precision analog solutions, has recently unveiled the ISL78610 12-cell lithium-ion (Li-ion) battery pack monitor. The device is designed to offer cell balancing and accurate temperature and voltage monitoring to protect Li-ion battery packs in electric vehicles, plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, and hybrid electric vehicles. It can be used by system designers as a standalone battery-pack monitor or as a redundant back-up device when merged with the high accuracy ISL78600 multi-cell battery manager. Thanks to this combination, automakers will be able to attain the higher ISO 26262 automotive safety integrity level (ASIL) D rating.

Jampacked with innovative features, the ISL78610 monitors and balances up to 12 cells with accurate voltage readings and diagnostics. This allows system designers to make informed decisions based on absolute voltage levels than simply getting a ‘system not OK’ signal suggesting an out-of-range condition. Included in the ISL78610 is a voltage reference, a 14-bit analog-to-digital converter, and registers for data and control, while connecting to a microcontroller via its 2.5Mbps SPI interface. Additionally, the device has four external temperature inputs, and includes fault diagnostic and detection for all major internal functions.

Intersil’s battery monitoring and management ICs meet the strict safety, performance, and reliability requirements of next-gen automotive battery pack systems. Both the ISL78610 and ISL78600 offer internal and external fault detection such as over and under voltage, open wire as well as temperature and cell balancing faults to mitigate battery pack failures. A number of devices can be daisy-chained together to support systems with up to 168 cells utilizing a proprietary communications system that offers industry-leading transient and EMC/EMI immunity, which surpasses automaker requirements. Intersil’s daisy-chain architecture utilizes affordable capacitive isolation with twisted pair wiring to stack a number of battery packs together, while the ICs internal protection safeguards against hot plug and high voltage transients. There is also a watchdog timer that automatically shuts down a daisy-chained IC if communication is lost with the master microcontroller.

According to Philip Chesley, senior vice president of Precision Products at Intersil, the The ISL78610 battery pack monitor offers customers the right combination of Li-ion battery pack monitoring and control features. “Teaming the monitor with the ISL78600 battery manager also gives carmakers the robustness, accuracy and redundancy required to achieve an ASIL-D compliant battery management system.”