Texas Instruments 'MaxLife' Allows Faster Charging Of Li-Ion Battery & Extends Life

Texas Instruments (TI, NASDAQ: TXN) ) has announced a new 'MaxLife' technology to allow faster charging of Li-Ion batteries without degrading the battery life. The company introduced bq27530 and bq27531 fuel gauge circuits, coupled with TI's bq2416x and bq2419x chargers that use the TI's patented MaxLife technology to optimise the battery performance. These power management chipsets use highest possible charge rates without causing battery degradation. The company says that MaxLife can offer about 30% improvement in the battery life.

The technology uses an innovative degradation modeling system that minimies charging time. The MaxLife algorithm, based on TI's popular Impedance Track battery capacity measurement technology, is capable of accurately predicting charge conditions that could degrade the battery and then avoids them.


In traditional systems implemented using microcontroller, PMIC or DSPs, the battery management related predictions are not very accurate and often take lot of time to translate collected information into run time. TI's bq27530 and bq24160 chipset for 2.5-A charge rates and the bq27531 and bq24192 chipset for 4.5-A charge rates allow the designers enhanced flexibility by having the gauge control the charger directly. This completely autonomous battery management system reduces the overall software overhead, improves battery safety and security and also allows for better thermal management. It also allows designers and developers to adapt the charging algorithm to support various platform and new higher capacity batteries.

Texas Instruments is offering development kits to get you started. Here's an official quote from the press release that talks about availability & pricing -

The bq27530 and bq27531 battery fuel gauges with charger control are available now in a 2-mm by 1-mm by 0.65-mm, 15-pin wafer chipscale (WCSP) package, and are priced at US$2.07 in 1,000-unit quantities. The bq24192 4.5-A battery charger comes in a 24-pin, 4-mm by 4-mm QFN package and is priced at US$2.50 in quantities of 1,000. The bq24160 dual-input 2.5-A charger comes in a 24-pin QFN package and a 2.8-mm by 2.8-mm, 49-ball WCSP package, and is priced at US$2.50 in 1,000-unit quantities.

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