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BQ24250: What is the advantage of using a battery charger IC with control interface like I2C vs. using one that is autonomous? Like the BQ24232

Thomas Gruber
Prodigy 100 points
Part Number: BQ24250
Other Parts Discussed in Thread: BQ24232, BQ25616, BQ25896

Dear Sir or Madam,

we are working on an architecture study for battery powered embedded system. Battery will be LiPo with 1800mAh.

I have studied available chargers and found the BQ24250 which supports an I2C control interface. And I found the BQ24232 which seems to be suited as well, but does not feature an I2C control interface. 

What is the advantage of the I2C control interface? Is it recommended if the system can support I2C (as in our case; we have a Linux System) to make use of that? Or could the system as well be configured to use an autonomous charger for the sake of simplicity and less effort on the SW dev side?

Could you please explain? Or share a document explaining the advantages of a charger with control interface vs one without?

Many thanks in advance & Kind Regards,

thomas

  • 0
    TI__Guru*** 143950 points

    Hi Thomas,

    You are comparing a switching charger to a linear charger.  The switching charger will be more efficient and therefore the IC itself will be less hot when charging a deeply discharged battery.

    Regarding host controlled I2C vs standalone charger, the key benefits of I2C are more control/options of charge details like termination/precharge current as well as more detail status and fault reporting instead of only an LED, at the expense of more SW development.  If you choose host controlled switching charger, you might consider the BQ25616, which is the latest standalone charger.  Also some chargers, like BQ25896, have integrated ADC for measuring voltage and currents, if that is of interest.

    Regards,

    Jeff

  • 0 in reply to Jeff F
    Prodigy 100 points

    Jeff - thank you very much for the prompt and helpful reply.

    Efficiency during charging is not critical, but the BQ24250 seems to be very well supported. It even has Linux Main line support. Can you confirm that this component will be available for years to come or is it nearing EOL?

    If you can't recommend BQ24250 for new designs, can you recommend a different one where a Linux driver is already available? BQ25896 seems to be supported in Linux as well - would you rather recommend that one instead of BQ24250?

    From price point of view the BQ25896 seems to be a bit more expensive than BQ24250.

    thanks again,

    thomas

  • 0 in reply to Thomas Gruber
    TI__Guru*** 143950 points

    Hi Thomas,

    There is no plan to EOL BQ24250. We still have many customers for it. 

    Regarding BQ25896, it has a few additional features, like integrated ADC and higher max charge current, that make it more expensive.  Keep in mind, the BQ25896 has fixed default values for charge current and VINDPM, unlike the BQ24250 which allows you to set both of those default values with external resistors.  Both allow you to change from the default values using I2C registers.

    Regards,

    Jeff

  • 0 in reply to Jeff F
    TI__Guru*** 143950 points

    Hi Thomas,

    I just found out that a Linux driver for BQ256XX family is planned for publication at the GIT link below.

    https://git.ti.com/gitweb?p=ti-analog-linux-kernel/dmurphy-analog.git;a=shortlog;h=refs/heads/bcp_drivers

     Regards,

    Jeff