Battery charger delivers low termination current
Texas Instruments (TI) has introduced a new switching battery charger integrated circuit (IC) that supports a termination current of 20 mA. Compared to competing devices, which typically support a termination current higher than 60mA, TI’s BQ25619 enables seven percent higher battery capacity and longer run time.
The BQ25619 charger also delivers three-in-one boost converter integration and ultra-fast charging, offering 95% efficiency at a 4.6V and 0.5A output. Additionally, with the industry’s lowest quiescent current, the new charger can double the shelf life of ready-to-use electronics.
The BQ25619 charger helps engineers design more efficiently for small medical and personal electronics applications such as hearing aids, earbuds and wireless charging cases, IP network cameras, patient monitoring devices and personal care applications.
Key features and benefits of the BQ25619
- What TI believes to be the industry’s lowest termination current for switching chargers: An ultra-low termination current of 20 mA increases battery capacity and run time by up to seven percent. The BQ25619’s settable top-off timer further increases run time, enabling users to charge their devices less frequently.
- Best-in-class low quiescent current: The BQ25619 reduces battery leakage down to 6 uA in ship mode, which conserves battery energy to double the shelf life for the device. While in battery-only operation, the device consumes only 10 uA, to support standby systems.
- Three-in-one boost converter integration: The BQ25619 includes integrated charge, boost converter and voltage protection to support efficient design for space-constrained applications and eliminate the external inductor required by previous-generation charger ICs. Due to its integrated bidirectional buck or boost topology, the BQ25619’s charging and discharging capabilities require just a single power device.
The BQ25619 expands TI’s portfolio of industry-leading battery-charger solutions, offering single- and multicell switch-mode chargers for high-capacity batteries, as well as linear chargers with high integration to extend battery run time and reduce total solution size. Learn more about TI’s battery charging solutions for accurate, dependable and faster, cooler charging.
Designers can use the BQ25619 evaluation module (EVM) to easily evaluate the device’s features and performance and speed time to market. The BQ25619EVM is available for US$99.
The BQ25619 is available now through the TI store and authorised distributors. Offered in a 24-pin wafer quad flatpack no-lead (WQFN) package, the charger is priced at US$1.45 in 1,000-unit quantities.
The 30-pin BQ25618, with similar features, will be offered in a smaller wafer chip-scale package (WCSP) in the third quarter of 2019.
In some cases one battery is not enough, and a multibattery system is necessary. For example, wireless earbuds require two space-constrained batteries for each earbud and low charge current, which differs from the design requirements for wireless charging cases. For these designs, TI offers the BQ25619 for wireless charging cases and the BQ25150 for earbud charging.
The BQ25150 is an I2C-controlled linear charger with two low-dropout linear regulators, a built-in analog-to-digital converter, less than 500 nA of quiescent current in low-power mode, and up to 500 mA of charge current, all while maintaining an 11-mm2 solution size.