New Industry Products

Ultra-Low-Power Battery Protection IC for Wearables and Small IoT Devices

January 16, 2018 by Paul Shepard

GLF Integrated Power has introduced the GLF73510 IQSmart™ IC, designed to virtually eliminate wearable and IoT device battery discharge during standby or deep-sleep operation. The GLF73510 consumes an industry-leading ultra-low leakage current (ISD) of 2 nA (typ.), as much as 1,000 times less than other chips commonly used in this application.

Applications for wearable and smaller IoT battery powered devices are expanding rapidly. Market forces continue to demand hardware solutions with more features and longer battery life at a lower cost.

According to GLF, the semiconductor industry has been slow to address the specific requirements of smaller battery-powered devices and considers existing ICs, developed for mobile applications with much higher battery densities, as a good fit.

“Load switches currently used to protect wearables and small IoT device batteries were actually designed for much larger devices, where standby or deep-sleep battery drain was not a serious concern,” stated Eileen Sun, GLF’s President, and CEO.

“Because the GLF73510 has been designed from the ground up to address this important problem, it virtually eliminates battery deep discharge during product shipment, storage, and stand-by,” Sun added.

The GLF73510 is a high-efficiency 2A-rated, bi-directional switch with a turn-on threshold to prevent a battery from deep discharge.  The compact IC is provided in a wafer-level chip scale package (WLCSP) measuring 0.97 mm x 0.97 mm x 0.55 mm.

The GLF73510 is available from stock and costs $0.19 (in OEM quantities).