Advanced Battery Management System Enables a Safer, Smarter Car of the Future


January 8, 2018 | Product Brief | Automotive OEMs can enhance the safety of their lithium-ion battery packs with robust communications, comprehensive diagnostics, and lower system costs with the MAX17843 12-channel, high-voltage smart sensor data-acquisition device from Maxim Integrated Products, Inc.

Electric vehicles (EVs), hybrid EVs, and plug-in hybrids rely on large lithium-ion battery packs filled with hundreds or even thousands of individual battery cells. With industry experts predicting that 25 percent of cars sold by 2025 will have electric engines, automotive OEMs and Tier 1s need an intelligent battery management system to enable safe, low cost solutions with robust communications.

Maxim is enabling a safer, smarter car of the future with the MAX17843 battery management system (BMS). MAX17843 meets the highest safety standards, adhering to ISO 26262 and ASIL D requirements (also applicable for ASIL C). Its differential universal asynchronous receiver/transmitter (UART) using capacitive isolation reduces bill of materials (BOM) costs and failure in time (FIT) rates. With this, designers can save up to 90 percent of their isolation BOM cost. The UART, with ultimate flexibility, enables robust communications in noisy environments. Using Maxim’s unique proprietary daisy-chain architecture and successive-approximation-register (SAR) analog-to-digital converter (ADC), the MAX17843 captures fast, accurate voltage measurements, and delivers high EMC performance. It is applicable for a variety of automotive and EV powertrain applications.