Freescale Introduces Accurate Li-Ion Battery Charger Integrated Circuits
Freescale Semiconductor introduced a family of Li-Ion battery charger ICs designed to provide what the company claims is the industry’s highest performance and accuracy, as well as exceptional configuration flexibility.
Freescale’s MC34671, MC34673 and MC34674 single-input autonomous battery charger ICs offer output voltage accuracy of +/-0.4% over temperature and charging current accuracy of +/-5% over temperature. The ICs can be customized to create hundreds of configurations to address a wide range of portable and ultra-mobile device needs. A designer can select features and specifications, such as pin-out, feature set, charging parameters and LED indication, and Freescale can deliver customized charger ICs by programming them at the end of the manufacturing process.
Freescale states that the programming flexibility of the Li-Ion battery charger devices enables the company to create highly tailored charger ICs for specific application requirements. Target applications for Freescale’s battery charger IC family include cell phones, personal media players, navigation systems, digital still cameras, as well as travel chargers for these devices.
Built using Freescale’s SMARTMOS™ process technology, the battery charger ICs are designed to deliver up to 1.2A of charge current to single cell Li-Ion or Li-Polymer batteries. The battery charger input voltage can come from an ac adapter or a USB port power source. The high input voltage capability (up to 28V) is designed to eliminate the need for an external input over-voltage protection circuit required in handheld devices, which is said to help reduce system cost and board space.
"The first devices in a planned series, these next-generation lithium-ion battery charger ICs enable manufacturers to easily customize their battery charging solutions based on their unique application specifications," said Arman Naghavi, Vice President and General Manager of Freescale’s Analog, Mixed Signal & Power Division. "The customization takes place at the final phase in our factory, which minimizes the time and expense a manufacturer typically associates with ordering a custom device."
To provide developers with smaller, lighter charger IC products for space-constrained portable designs, each battery charger IC comes in a low-profile 2 x3 x 0.65mm ultra-thin dual flat no-lead (UDFN) thermally-enhanced package.
Samples of the battery charger ICs are available now with customer-selected specifications. The suggested resale price in 10,000-piece quantities starts at $0.52 (USD).
