Renesas unveils multi-cell battery front-end family for high-voltage systems

Renesas Electronics Corporation, a supplier of advanced semiconductor solutions, has introduced a new family of multi-cell full battery front-end (BFE) ICs for battery management systems (BMS). They are built for the larger, high-voltage battery packs that power e-scooters, energy storage, high-voltage power tools, and other high-voltage equipment.

The new ICs provide fast, flexible, cell balancing up to 200 mA+, a critical function to enable fast recharging and high utilization in large battery packs with hot plug tolerance up to 62V.

“BMS serves as the “brains” of the battery pack, and the increasing adoption of BMS in UPS and the data center is spiking demand for high-performance ICs that can support higher voltage and larger cell battery pack sizes,” said Andrew Cowell, VP, Mobility, Infrastructure and IoT Power Business Division at Renesas.

Designed for higher voltage mobility applications where larger cell count and temperature variance across cells are more likely to lead to cell-to-cell imbalances, the RAA489206 provides full high-side battery protection and monitoring for 4S to 16S cell battery packs.

“BFEs are a critical part of BMS, and we’ve built our new RAA489206 and RAA489204 ICs with the performance, flexibility, and integration that make it easier than ever for customers to simplify the design process and create robust, cost-effective battery systems for the growing mobility, UPS backup, energy storage markets,” added Cowell.

The RAA489204 provides improved daisy chain operation with accelerated device-to-device communication and enhanced diagnostics compared with previous-generation devices, as well as internal cell balancing options and support for the higher voltages and cell count required by UPS systems, grid backup, and other energy storage systems.

The new ICs’ high integration simplifies the design cycle and reduces customers’ system BOM costs significantly, accelerating design and BOM selection time from months to weeks.The ICs also feature extensive built-in self diagnostics, improving their safety functionality, reducing firmware workload, and easing the design burden for meeting safety standards.

Pin-to-pin compatibility with Renesas’ previous BFE devices simplifies the design cycle even further, offering customers a quick and seamless migration path to the new BFE ICs.

Features of the RAA489206:

A 16-cell voltage measurement
Internal (10 mA) and external (200 mA) cell balancing options
Operating voltage range of between 12 and 55V with +/- 10mV voltage measurement accuracy
Up to 20 cm² board space reduction
Low-side current sense measurement
High-side charge/discharge FET battery protection

Features of the RAA489204:

Operating voltage range of between 10 and 65V with +/- 10mV voltage measurement accuracy and +/-190mV pack voltage measurement accuracy
Measures and performs read-back on all voltages, temperatures, and diagnostics for 112 cells in less than 10ms
Cell balancing with both internal and external FETs supported
Up to six external thermistor inputs
Robust, low-power (typically 1mA when transmitting 10% of time) daisy-chain communications
Stackable up to 30 ICs

The RAA489206 and RAA489204 ICs are optimal for reliable BMS applications. Renesas has designed multiple system architectures using complementary power, analog, and microcontroller offerings to create comprehensive solutions for a variety of applications.