Miniature current sensor

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16 July 2014 Analogue, Mixed Signal, LSI

To satisfy the evolving demands that requirements such as increased energy efficiency place on current sensing technologies in systems ranging from solar inverters and electric drives, server and telecom applications, power supplies and home appliances through to electric and hybrid vehicles, Infineon Technologies has developed the TLI4970.

The new chip is a high-precision current sensor based on Hall effect technology, with galvanic isolation between the primary side (conductor rail) and the secondary side (interface to the microcontroller). It is housed in a compact SMD package yet its differential measuring method permits excellent suppression of stray fields.

The fully digital sensor is designed for ease of use, as no external calibration or additional components (such as A/D converters, operational amplifiers or voltage references) are required. It achieves a very low offset of just 25 mA and incorporates structures for measuring the temperature and mechanical stress on the device, allowing it to guarantee high accuracy by compensating for these effects dynamically.

Using the TLI4970, it is possible to measure alternating and direct currents up to 50 A in such applications as solar inverters, power supplies with power factor correction (PFC), charging devices and electric drives. The contactless measuring principle does not cause any additional losses, making it ideally suited for current-saving designs.

Protection of the power stage is provided through a separate signal path to keep latency to a minimum: the sensor needs only 1,8 μs to detect a related error condition. To fine tune the over-current threshold to the requirements of an application, a system developer can program both the current value and the subsequent filtering in the sensor.

Integration of the current path into the SMD packaging enables calibration of the sensor before shipment. The IC provides measuring results (13-bit current value) via a 16-bit SPI interface, and supports a galvanic isolated measurement with up to 600 V operation voltage and 3,6 kV test voltage.

For more information contact Davis Moodley, Infineon Technologies, +27 (0)11 706 6099, [email protected], www.infineon.com

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Miniature current sensor

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