Infineon Technologies AG (FSE: IFX / OTCQX: IFNNY) has made waves in the automotive industry with the introduction of the PSoC 4 High Voltage Precision Analog (HVPA)-144K microcontroller, a game-changing innovation set to transform automotive battery management systems. This cutting-edge microcontroller integrates high-precision analog and high-voltage subsystems onto a single chip, offering a fully integrated embedded system for monitoring and managing automotive 12 V lead-acid batteries, crucial for powering vehicles’ electrical systems.
The PSoC 4 HVPA-144K microcontroller is designed to meet the rigorous demands of the automotive sector, boasting ISO26262 compliance for compact and safe intelligent battery sensing and management in modern vehicles. Its dual high-resolution sigma-delta ADCs and four digital filtering channels ensure accurate measurement of key battery parameters such as state-of-charge (SoC) and state-of-health (SoH) with an impressive accuracy of up to ±0.1 percent.
One of the standout features of the PSoC 4 HVPA-144K is its utilization of shunt-based current sensing for batteries, providing superior accuracy compared to conventional Hall sensors. Additionally, the microcontroller features two programmable gain amplifiers (PGAs) with automatic gain control, enabling fully autonomous control of the analog front end without software intervention.
Furthermore, the integration of an integrated 12 V LDO (42 V tolerant) allows the device to be directly powered from the 12 V lead-acid battery, eliminating the need for an external power supply. The inclusion of an integrated transceiver enables seamless communication with the LIN bus, while meeting the functional safety requirements of ASIL-C according to ISO26262.
Powered by an Arm® Cortex®-M0+ MCU operating at up to 48 MHz, the PSoC 4 HVPA-144K offers up to 128 KB of code flash, 8 KB of data flash, and 8 KB of SRAM, all with ECC. The microcontroller also includes digital peripherals such as timers/counters/PWMs and a versatile serial communication block configurable as I2C/SPI/UART.
To support seamless development and implementation, the PSoC 4 HVPA-144K is backed by Infineon’s Automotive Peripheral Driver Library (AutoPDL) and Safety Library (SafeTlib), developed in accordance with the standard automotive software development process and compliant with MISRA 2012 AMD1, CERT C, and ISO26262.
With the introduction of the PSoC 4 HVPA-144K, Infineon sets the stage for expanding its PSoC microcontroller portfolio to include Li-ion battery management systems for electric vehicles (EVs). The portfolio will soon encompass a range of products tailored for monitoring and managing both high voltage (400 V and above) and low voltage (12 V/48 V) batteries, further propelling the adoption of EVs in the future.
The PSoC 4 HVPA-144K microcontroller is now available in a compact 32-QFN (6×6 mm²) package with up to 9 GPIOs, accompanied by an evaluation board for easy development. Infineon Technologies AG, a global semiconductor leader in power systems and IoT, continues to drive decarbonization and digitalization with its innovative products and solutions, reaffirming its position as a trailblazer in the semiconductor industry.
