International Components Corp. (ICC, Chicago, IL) announced that it has expanded its line of safety circuits for lithium-ion batteries to provide greater flexibility in both the physical and performance aspects of their circuits. The ICC safety circuits sense cell voltages and discharge currents, provide a means to measure cell temperature, and are designed to shut off the battery pack in order to prevent the cells from becoming over-charged or over-discharged.
"Portable device manufacturers' primary concerns are user-oriented features such as clock speed on laptop computers or zoom ratios on camcorders," stated Peter Sadler, executive director, strategic marketing at ICC. "That's what sells units. Battery performance is well down the priority list because it's not a core competency. Yet it can have a big effect on customer satisfaction and ultimately brand reputation. Our expanded safety circuit line makes it easy for them to spec in what they need early into the product development cycle and meet both their quality and production goals."
