New Industry Products

High Accuracy, Low Quiescent Current Fuel Gauge

April 03, 2017 by Jeff Shepard

Developers of portable devices now have an easier way to design in the most accurate and low power host-side battery gauges with the MAX17055 ModelGauge™ m5 from Maxim Integrated Products, Inc. Traditionally, fuel gauges required extensive characterization of each battery type, used in specific applications, for attaining good performance. This meant the customer had to perform complicated battery characterization, adding weeks of time and resources to the design cycle. With the ModelGauge m5 EZ configuration of the MAX17055, battery characterization requirement is eliminated, shortening the customer's time to market.

One of the main benefits of a fuel gauge is that the system designer can use it to decide when to shut down the device when the battery gets low. If the fuel gauge overestimates the battery life, the shutdown might not happen before the voltage falls below the minimum operating point, resulting in an unexpected crash.

Alternately, if the designer shuts down the system prematurely, then the run-time becomes shorter, which is highly undesirable for the user. By offering an accurate fuel gauge — within 1% state of charge (SOC) error for most cases — the MAX17055 allows the designer to plan for a shutdown that maximizes the device run-time.

The MAX17055 draws just 7µA of quiescent in the low power operating mode. It is available in a 1.4mm x 1.5mm WLP for space constrained applications. Unlike other gas gauges, the MAX17055 does not have a minimum battery size limit, making it suited for wearables, smartwatches, smartphones, health and fitness monitors, body cameras, portable medical devices, hearables, drones, virtual reality gear, and USB Type-C™ portable devices.

"Having shipped more than one billion fuel gauge devices, Maxim is continuously innovating to empower our customers to get the most energy from their batteries," said Bakul Damle, Mobile Power Business Management Director at Maxim Integrated. "Why get caught with bad battery management? Eliminate the risk by using the MAX17055, a host-side fuel gauge you can trust."

The MAX17055 is available from stock and priced at $1.08 (10,000-up, FOB USA). The MAX17055XEVKIT# is available from stock and priced at $66.00.