New Components and Design Methods Bring Intelligence to Battery Charger Applications

New design methods and components bring high intelligence to battery charger and power-management applications. When developing intelligent power management systems, very complex and cumbersome analog-only solutions are now old school. When combining low-cost microcontroller's with analog-attach, high-speed Pulse Width Modulators (PWMs), the benefits of a mixed signal design can be realized. In the past, a complex power-management system was developed using a high-speed analog PWM combined with logic and specialty analog-only circuits. In some cases, non-flexible, off-the-shelf solutions are available for a price. For most applications, they have neither the features, nor the capability, to meet any special requirements. With the addition of a microcontroller, the new design method can adapt to almost any system command, environmental conditions or system-level fault.