Electrical Components

Lithium-ion batteries are the best available power storage technology for applications ranging from cars to cell phones to medical devices to PCs. Designers like their high energy-to-weight ratios, lack of memory effect, and slow loss of charge when not in use. But a chief drawback of lithium-ion batteries has been the complexity, cost, and poor accuracy of battery gauging systems. Electronic Design News says that a new impedance tracking chip from Texas Instruments trumps existing technologies by directly measuring the effects of discharge rate, age, and temperature on battery charge. Direct measurement allows the gauge to provide 99% accuracy, good enough for medical electronics used in life support systems.

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