Renesas Electronics launches new multi-cell battery front-end products suitable for high-voltage systems

Renesas Electronics Group, a global semiconductor solution provider, recently announced the launch of a new multi-cell complete battery front end (BFE) IC product family for battery management systems (BMS)-RAA48920x series (RAA489204 and RAA489206). It is designed for electric vehicles, energy storage, high-voltage power tools and other high-voltage equipment that use high-voltage battery packs. It provides fast, flexible, and battery cell balance up to 200 mA or more. With this key function, it can heat up to 62V. Fast charging and efficient use in large battery packs with plug-in tolerance.

Andrew Cowell, Vice President of Renesas Electronics’ Mobility, Infrastructure and Internet of Things Power Business Unit, said:“BMS is equivalent to the’brain’ of battery packs. With the increasing popularity of BMS in UPS and data center applications, there is a surge in demand for high-performance ICs that can support higher voltages and larger battery pack sizes. BFE is BMS. The key to this. Our new RAA489206 and RAA489204 ICs combine flexibility and high integration, allowing customers to simplify the design process more easily and create robust and economical batteries for the growing electric vehicle, UPS and energy storage markets system.”

RAA489206 is specifically designed for applications such as higher voltage electric vehicles. In such applications, a larger number of batteries and temperature differences between batteries are more likely to cause imbalance between cells. RAA489206 provides comprehensive high-side battery protection and monitoring functions for 4S to 16S battery packs. RAA489204 has optimized daisy chain cascading, speeds up communication between devices, enhanced diagnostic functions, and also provides internal cell balancing options to support higher voltages and cell counts required by UPS systems, grid backup and other energy storage systems.

The high integration of the new IC simplifies the design cycle and significantly reduces the customer system BOM cost, shortening the design and BOM selection cycle from several months to several weeks. These ICs also have a built-in self-diagnostic function, which improves their safety functions, reduces firmware workload, and reduces the design burden required to meet safety standards. The product is pin-compatible with Renesas’ existing BFE devices, which further simplifies the design cycle and provides customers with a fast path to seamlessly migrate to the new BFE IC.

Key features of RAA489206

● 16 battery cell voltage measurement

● Internal (10mA) and external (200mA) cell balance options

● The working voltage range is 12-55V, and the voltage measurement accuracy is +/-10mV

● It can be reduced by up to 20cm²Circuit board area

● Low-side current sensing measurement

● High-side charge/discharge FET battery protection

Key features of RAA489204

● The operating voltage range is 10-65V, the voltage measurement accuracy is +/-10mV, and the battery pack voltage measurement accuracy is +/-190mV

● Measure and read back all voltage, temperature and diagnostic data of 112 cells within 10ms

● Support internal and external FET cell balance

● Robust, low power consumption (typical value is 1mA when the transmission time duty cycle is 10%) daisy chain communication

● Up to 30 ICs can be cascaded

RAA489206 and RAA489204 ICs are ideal for robust battery management system (BMS) applications. Renesas has designed a variety of system architectures based on coordinated power, analog, and microcontroller products to create comprehensive solutions for various applications. Including a new 20-28 cell battery management system (up to 118V), which can provide a complete BMS system reference design. Renesas “Successful Product Portfolio” is a proven complete solution designed to help customers accelerate the design process and shorten the time to market. Based on a variety of products that can work together seamlessly, Renesas has now launched more than 250 “successful product portfolios” suitable for various applications and end products.

Supply information

RAA489206 and RAA489204 IC are available now.