Solar battery charging IC

17 August 2011 Power Electronics / Power Management

With the introduction of a new battery charging IC, STMicroelectronics aims to make the small strips of solar cells seen in the front panels of today’s small portable consumer, healthcare and security devices a more valuable source of free energy.

The device is designed to increase charging efficiency either indoors or outdoors, using the sun’s radiated energy, enabling longer mobile equipment runtime and avoiding an unexpected lack of power when a mains connection is not available.

The SPV1040 is a step-up DC-DC converter tailored to be used as a solar battery charger for portable applications to employ maximum power point tracking (MPPT), a technique for collecting the maximum possible energy from solar cells. It can be connected to strips of even just a few cells, allowing use in products such as portable healthcare devices, watches, calculators, wireless headsets, toys or mobile phones. The battery charger and MPPT technology can also be used in equipment such as sensors and security cameras.

The MPPT algorithm embedded in the SPV1040 dynamically adjusts the charger’s input impedance to ensure perfect matching with the solar cell, thereby maximising energy transfer to the battery and improving overall system efficiency. Without MPPT, changes in the solar cells caused by temperature, ageing, dirt or unit-to-unit variation can produce mismatches that significantly reduce the energy harvested.

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