Date: 08/10/2009

Two-chip battery protection solution from Atmel for automotive and industrial apps

Atmel has made available of ATA6870/71, a new Li-Ion battery management chipset that includes a hot plug-in capability, six integrated A/D converters with a cut-off frequency lower than 30 Hz, saving external filters, and a stackable microcontroller power supply. The ATA6870/71 is suitable for high-cell-count automotive and industrial applications such as electrical/hybrid vehicles, e-bikes or uninterruptible power supplies.

The ATA6870 includes all functionalities to control a high-cell-count Li-Ion battery including six precise 12-bit AD converters for voltage monitoring, cell balancing, cell temperature measuring, and unique features such as stackable integrated power supply for a microcontroller or hot plug-in capability.

The ATA6871 monitors the battery cells' voltage and temperature, and prevents Li-Ion batteries from thermal runaway or exploding. If either of these were to occur in a battery cell, it can then be switched off by the emergency relays. With its implemented self-test routines, which run without an external microcontroller or software and its hardware-implemented monitoring thresholds, the ATA6871 constitutes the high safety level for Li-Ion battery monitoring.

"Battery safety and efficiency are key for industrial and automotive battery applications," said Claus Mochel, Automotive High-Voltage Marketing Manager for Atmel Corporation. "Atmel's new ATA6870 and ATA6871 address these issues by offering a battery management solution with an unsurpassed safety concept and advanced parallel cell voltage measuring and balancing technique."

Package: QFN48/SSO28 package
Price:
ATA6870: Starts at $2.95 for 10k pieces
ATA6871: Starts at $1.31 for 10k pieces
Availability: Now in samples
The evaluation kits are also available now

For more details visit www.atmel.com

Editorial product rating: Significant