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The bq28400 provides battery capacity and safety monitoring optimized specifically for 2-cell Li-Ion and Li-Pol applications. This single-chip fuel gauge and analog front end (AFE) provide a first level of protection against all cell fault conditions: over/undervoltage, overcurrent, temperature, and imbalance between cells.
2-Cell Lithium-Ion Fuel Gauge and Protector – [Link]
Microchip Technology Inc., today announced an expansion of its existing 28-/40-pin PIC16F72X microcontroller (MCU) family with two new 20-pin devices—the PIC16F(LF)720 and PIC16F(LF)721.
The new MCUs feature low power consumption, making them suitable for various low-power and battery-powered applications. These MCUs offer up to 7 KB of self-write Flash program memory, a temperature-indicator module, an 8-bit Analog-to-Digital Converter (ADC), a capture/compare PWM module, and various serial communication peripherals, such as I2C™, SPI and AUSART. The highly-integrated MCUs enable engineers to reduce board size, component count and overall cost for a variety of applications in the appliance (e.g. blenders, refrigerators, dishwashers); consumer/home electronic (e.g. TV remote controls, toys, phones, set-top boxes); industrial (e.g. digital water heaters, security systems, humidity sensors); and automotive (remote lock systems, power seats, level sensors, lighting control) markets, among others.
Microchip expands 8-bit PIC® microcontroller lineup with new 20-pin chips – [Link]
Precision circuit monitors negative-supply threshold: [via]
Using an IC (MAX971) that includes an open-drain comparator and a precision 1% voltage reference, this circuit monitors the magnitude of a negative supply voltage and provides a digital warning of fault conditions. To monitor multiple negative voltages, use the MAX974, which includes four comparators.
App note: Monitor negative power supplies – [Link]
Microchip’s MCP79411 general purpose I2C™Compatible real-time clock/calendar (RTCC) is highly integrated with nonvolatile memory and advanced features including a battery switchover circuit for backup power, a timestamp to log power failures and digital trimming for accuracy. It can use a low-cost 32.768 kHz crystal or other clock source and the chip operates over a supply range of 1.8 to 5.5 volts. [via]
MCP7941X I2C RTCC with EEPROM, SRAM, Unique ID and Battery Switchover – [Link]
Texas Instruments has launched a floating-point microcontroller (MCU) for operation under extreme temperature conditions from -55 °C to 210 °C, which it says is an industry first and exceeds the traditional 150 °C limit for high-temperature semiconductors devices.
Floating-point MCU operates at up to 210 C - [Link]
adafruit.com writes:
In honor of the new chronodot, we’ve put the brains behind the chip (The maxim DS3231) into our partfinder! This is a high precision ‘big brother’ to the DS1307. It has a built in temperature compensated oscillator so that its very precise. They are a bit chunky but good when you want to really keep track of time and cant integrate a GPS module.
DS3231 – High precision real time clock with built in oscillator – [Link]
Apple A5 floorplan: [via]
We had decapsulated the A5 a couple of days ago, but as you could see in those early pictures, you can’t tell much of a chip’s layout from the top metal – it’s all power and ground buses. So we have to de-layer the chip down to a level where we can see the block layout of the chip; not an easy thing when there’s nine layers of metal! In fact, these days it’s easier to go in from the back and remove the substrate silicon, and look at the gate level from below. Then we can identify the circuit blocks that make up the full device.
Apple A5 floorplan – [Link]
Microchip announced the expansion of its analog power-management family with the MCP73831 battery charger, a fully-integrated, single-cell, Li-ion/Li-Polymer charge-management controller. Tiny 500mA linear charge management controller can be powered directly from the USB port. Includes integrated pass transistor, current sense and reverse-discharge protection, the MCP73831 charger reduces the number of components needed for battery-charger designs. Its highly accurate, pre-set voltage regulation (maximum accuracy 0.5 per cent to 0.75 per cent) results in more fully charged batteries and extended battery life. Since the MCP73831 charge-management controller includes a pass transistor, current sense and reverse-discharge protection on a single chip, it reduces the number of system components needed for battery-charger designs, which, added Microchip, lowers overall system costs.
Microchip’s Li-ion battery charger MCP73831 IC – [Link]
This design harvests heat energy to make electricity, and uses it to flash a warning light. Flashing LED hot-surface detector: [via]
Using a thermoelectric generator (TEG) to sense the temperature of a surface and a step-up switching regulator to boost the TEG output to a useful level, this warning circuit flashes a high-brightness LED when the surface temperature exceeds a threshold.
App note: Hot-surface warning light with no external power – [Link]
Texas Instruments today introduced the industry’s first two-channel, simultaneous-sampling successive approximation (SAR) analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) with two independently controlled internal references for simplified system-level design. [via]
TI intros first 2-channel, simultaneous-sampling ADCs - [Link]
