To achieve the highest possible reliability for intra-system communication, the ISL78601 utilizes a high noise immunity and transient tolerant communication scheme. This fully differential daisy-chain architecture allows the use of low cost twisted pair wiring to stack multiple battery packs together while protecting against hot plugging and high voltage transients. The benefits offered by the Intersil HEV/EV system solution can significantly reduce overall battery management system costs.
As part of the system’s safety features, the ISL78601 has extensive built-in fault detection for its internal functions and detects external faults such as over and under voltage. The device also includes a watchdog timer to detect communication failures.
The ISL78601 allows for easy connections to microcontrollers via either a 2.5MHz SPI or 400KHz I2C interface, and is specified for -40ºC to 105ºC operation.