New Industry Products

PowerSmart Introduces New SB Tool Integrated Software

June 18, 2000 by Jeff Shepard

PowerSmart Inc. (Shelton, CT) has introduced software and hardware tools for the evaluation and production of smart battery solutions using PowerSmart's PS33X Series of products. SB Tool, an integrated software package for Windows and SB Tool-Box, a hardware platform supporting multiple boards or packs, will enable battery manufacturers to automatically program and test up to four battery packs or modules, and calibrates within one minute. SB Tool operates in Microsoft Windows 95 or 98 and provides the means for data capture, calibration, testing and programming of the battery capacity for PowerSmart's monitoring solutions. It is a fully integrated test system that applies the SB Tool software for laboratory development purposes or to enhance the productivity of the manufacturing process.

The PS331 is the most advanced product in PowerSmart's P3 family of smart battery ICs, developed in response to industry demand for high accuracy and reliability of smart data communications. It meets all the requirements for SMBus rev. 11.1 and enables a host device, appending a packet error code at the end of each message transfer, to check the integrity of the data communication. For each read or write bus transaction, an eight-bit cyclic redundancy check (CRC-8) is used to calculate a frame-check sequence. Only one millisecond is required for the CRC-8 calculation of a single data byte. The PS331 is also capable of communicating with devices that do not implement PEC error-correction protocols.

The PS331 is designed for use with all battery chemistries and brings a new level of reliability and customization not available before with smart battery ICs. The suggested price for both hardware and software for the SB Tool/Tool-Box system is $6,500.