LTC battery charger IC halves charger design size

The LTC4008 4A multi-cell, multi-chemistry battery pack charger IC from Linear Technology Corp. occupies a footprint of 5.62cm? - half the size of competing products - and eliminates up to 40 percent of the required discrete components to reduce the cost of charger designs.

Available in a 20-pin SSOP, the IC includes I/O signals to report the status of a system to a microcontroller, who can then use the data for precision gas gauging, power management, and comprehensive display of the charging condition.

When interfaced with a microcontroller, the LTC4008 is capable of charging NiCd, NiMh, Li-ion, and SLA batteries. Typical applications include battery charger cradles, UPS, portable data terminals, and notebook PCs.

The LTC4008 drives external MOSFETs synchronously to achieve an efficiency >95 percent even when operating from a high input voltage and delivering up to 4A of charge current. The IC accepts 6V to 28V and delivers 3V to 28V output. Charging current is programmable to ±4 percent accuracy with external resistors.