WL1837 damage during abrupt power off condition

Brian Antheunisse

Other Parts Discussed in Thread: WL1837, WL1837MOD

Hi Wilink Team,

I have a customer who has an issue with their product which has the WL1837 designed into it. They notice permanent damage to the device during an abrupt power off event, when the batteries are disconnected. They don't have any sort of scope shots or anything as they do not want to destroy products in order to inject the fault. Have you guys heard of this type of behavior before?

It seems like the power supply circuitry is sensitive since the datasheet walks through a power on sequence in order to avoid damage, but is there any risk in powering down improperly as well?

Thanks,

Brian

over 9 years ago

0 S over 9 years ago

TI__Mastermind 35795 points

Brian , can you share the part number of WL18xxMOD that your customer is using ?
Saurabh

0 Brian Antheunisse over 9 years ago in reply to S

TI__Expert 5305 points

WL1837MOD. I can also share schematic snippets with you internally, but we can keep the conversation going here if we can keep it scrubbed.

Thanks,
Brian

0 Rizwan Murji over 9 years ago in reply to Brian Antheunisse

TI__Genius 13220 points

Hi Brian,

Yes power down is important. Our GPIO lines are not failsafe. That means that you cannot have a voltage on them when you power off the device. Just line you cannot have voltage on them when you power up the device. This can be a potential failure mode.

Hope this helps.

Thanks,
Riz

0 wifijacob over 9 years ago in reply to Rizwan Murji

Expert 1245 points

Hello Rizwan,
Where can we find the specification for this?

Thanks, Jacob

0 Rizwan Murji over 9 years ago in reply to wifijacob

TI__Genius 13220 points

Hi Jacob,

You can find in on page 20, figure 5-2 of the data sheet:

www.ti.com/.../wl1835mod

Thanks,
Tiz

0 wifijacob over 9 years ago in reply to Rizwan Murji

Expert 1245 points

Thanks. Just to confirm: having voltage on the GPIO lines while powering off may damage the device permanently?

Jacob

0 wifijacob over 9 years ago in reply to Rizwan Murji

Expert 1245 points

Rizwan, please confirm.

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WL1837 damage during abrupt power off condition