On April 11, 2024, Qorvo kicked off the "Core" themed media event at the Nanyang Shared Theater in Beijing. Qorvo's strong technical capabilities and keen insight into market dynamics enable Qorvo to innovate in a wide range of applications, including mobile communications, infrastructure, power management, Internet of Things, automotive electronics, and consumer electronics.
At present, in the fields of large-scale power tools, electric vehicles and industrial control, a large number of high-power equipment is gradually developing in the direction of multi-string and multi-cell lithium battery power supply, and the demand for BMS management system is increasing day by day. Qorvo's MCU-controlled intelligent BMS battery management system can use a single chip to accomplish the functions of multiple chips and components, and provides developers with graphical simulation of QSPICE software at the development level, improving engineer development efficiency, effectively accelerating the time-to-market, and leveraging Qorvo's complete hardware and firmware ecosystem to enable the increasing number of compact, multi-battery intelligent BMS systems.
An overview of Qorvo's power landscape
"Qorvo's four major products in the power supply space are highly customized PMICs, integrated motor drive solutions, BMS chips, and silicon carbide device technology," said Yichi Zhang, senior account manager at Qorvo. In addition, Qorvo has introduced QSPICE, a power emulation software. ”
Silicon carbide products
Zhang Yichi said that at present, silicon carbide is mainly used in five aspects: automobiles, charging, IT infrastructure, new energy and circuit protection.
Qorvo's silicon carbide products have a unique architecture that offers higher frequency, lower conduction resistance and better reverse recovery compared to common solutions on the market, and now has a broad range of applications from 650 volts to 1,700 volts.
QSPICE simulation software
Zhang Yichi said that QSPICE is completely free, compatible and easy to use, and users can easily migrate from software based on the SPICE model to QSPICE.
Qorvo's single-chip BMS solution
Zhang Yichi said that the residential, industrial and automotive fields are all developing in the direction of battery power, bringing new opportunities to the industry, and also contributing to Qorvo's investment in BMS products. Qorvo's first-generation BMS products are now capable of supporting input voltages up to 145V.
Qorvo launched the first intelligent motor control product with high integration as early as 2013, in 2015 Qorvo's motor drive products gradually expanded to 40V~70V and 600V AC direct drive platforms, in 2017 to expand to 160V motor drive platforms, in 2018 new M4 core products to meet the high computing power requirements, in 2021 Qorvo completed the layout of the full line of motor drive products, from 40V ~ 70V, 160V~600V, more than 30 products have been launched on the whole platform. In 2023, Qorvo's first BMS product is in mass production.
One of Qorvo's key features in motor drive and BMS battery management is that it focuses on a highly integrated solution that combines analog and digital components into a single-chip intelligent solution.
Qorvo's BMS battery management chips have three features, the first of which is intelligence, and the built-in MCU can be programmed, controlled and expanded in many functions like general-purpose MCUs. The second point is efficient protection, Qorvo has strengthened the chip's monitoring and protection function to prevent lithium batteries from abnormal, spontaneous combustion and explosion. The third point is the communication function, there are often many components in the BMS system that need to manage and run related algorithms, for this chip to provide a variety of communication support based on M0 core or M4 core I²C and serial port, convenient to connect peripherals.
Zhang emphasized that Qorvo's single-chip solution integrates either a 50MHz M0 core or a 150MHz M4 core, allowing customers to do a variety of system-level applications on the chip. In addition, Qorvo is the first vendor to introduce an integrated 20-string single-chip solution for BMS solutions that are typically 16 or 18 strings commonly available on the market. In addition, Qorvo provides many reference projects, algorithms, SDKs, etc. based on the built-in MCU to help customers complete the development of BMS management systems in the shortest possible time.
Qorvo's BMS single-chip solution consists of six functions and features: charge and discharge, monitoring and power calculation, cell balancing, short-circuit protection, overcharge and over-discharge protection, and low power consumption.
Qorvo integrates all the analog and digital logic required to implement these six functions into a single chip into a complete system.
Qorvo's first-generation BMS chips are currently dominated by two chips, PAC22140 and PAC25140, with the same analog front-end and 20-string battery pack management.
The main difference between the two chips is in the MCU part, PAC22140 has a built-in 50MHz Arm Cortex M0 core, equipped with 32KB flash memory and 8KB SRAM, while the PAC25140 is equipped with a 150MHz Arm Cortex M4F core, equipped with 128kB flash memory and 32kB SRAM, which is more powerful and more functional, and customers can choose according to their actual needs.
The chip can be divided into four parts: up, down, left and right, and the upper part of the chip integrates power management related logic, so that customers only need to lay passive devices such as capacitors and inductors in the design to complete the power supply design, effectively reducing the time spent on research and development. The right side of the chip integrates 20 strings of cell inputs, which can be directly taken over by the chip. The lower end of the chip is the MCU part, which can be used to design the necessary peripherals, and Qorvo's and general-purpose MCU standards are the same, so customers can easily switch from general-purpose MCU solutions to single-chip solutions. On the left side of the chip is the structure used to implement the communication function.
In addition, Zhang said that Qorvo BMS chips can be used in 48V, 60V, 72V and even 90V power supply scenarios such as large tools, electric two-wheelers, and industrial power storage.
As you can see from the board on the left, Qorvo's single-chip BMS solution has a very small footprint and a very low board space, making it easy for customers to implement peripheral designs.
Zhang Yichi said that the greatest value of single-chip solutions to customers is to shorten customer development time and accelerate the product launch process. That's why Qorvo provides customers with a complete hardware and software solution. To this end, Qorvo provides a feature-rich GUI software that can be used to complete the development process through a graphical software interface, reducing the time and effort required for programming.
Q&A session
Due to the limited space, the charging head network selects a few more representative questions for the reader's reference.
1. What are the advantages of Qorvo compared to the current mainstream BMS?
Zhang Yichi said: "First of all, low power consumption, Qorvo can be better through the form of MCU + AFE two-in-one
Optimized power consumption, the power consumption is less than <3uA in the sleep state of the battery pack. The second is high accuracy, which can achieve an accuracy of ±5mV in terms of critical parameters such as cell capacity, condition, and life. ”
2. What are the difficulties in supporting 20 strings of cells in Qorvo's single-chip BMS solution?
Zhang Yichi said: "When other suppliers deal with the demand of 20 strings, they often need to carry out a stacking design, that is, two analog front-ends of 10 strings are stacked together. Qorvo can support 20-string cell management on a single chip, reducing design complexity, including how to deal with high withstand voltage, heat generation and high and low voltage isolation. In the future, Qorvo will continue to increase the number of battery cells supported by a single chip to solve customers' stacking design challenges.
3. Does Qorvo have a presence in the wireless BMS field?
"Qorvo has a proven SOC single-chip solution that allows customers to support BMS management and wireless functions at the same time by replacing the MCU in the chip with BLE, Zigbee, Thread or other protocol chips," said Zhang.
4. How much room is there for Qorvo BMS systems to be used in electric two-wheelers?
"At present, the battery packs of electric two-wheelers are mainly based on the national standard 48V, 60V and 72V, and Qorvo's single-chip solution can cover the input voltage of 42V~84V, which can easily adapt to a variety of electric two-wheeler battery packs," said Zhang.
Other content of the event
Wi-Fi 7
To meet the challenges of Wi-Fi 7, Qorvo adopted nonlinear FEM+DPD to solve the EVM problem and improve power efficiency, said Jianfu Lin, senior marketing manager of Qorvo's Wireless Connectivity Business Unit in Asia Pacific. Qorvo's products span the Wi-Fi 6, Wi-Fi 6E and Wi-Fi 7 frequency bands, including linear and nonlinear FEM modules with high linearity, low power consumption and small package, and lower power consumption and higher PAE while utilizing digital predistortion compensation technology to achieve performance comparable to linear FEMs and higher efficiency.
Sensor Fusion
"Qorvo's Sensor Fusion solution delivers high accuracy, high sensitivity, high linearity and ultra-low power consumption to transform traditional touch buttons into a sleek, intelligent and reliable interface," said Lei. The solution aims to create a three-dimensional human-computer interaction experience, which is widely used in smartphones, AR/VR, automobiles, wearables, and smart homes. Edge touch, 3D touch, and wake-on-screen functions can be applied to smartphones, bringing new ideas to industry innovation, incorporating pressure sensor technology to improve driving experience and driving safety in vehicle design, overcoming traditional touch challenges to achieve thinner and lighter designs in wearable products, and providing high sensitivity and accuracy in smart home applications to make human-machine interaction more convenient and smooth.
Summary of the charging head network
Qorvo has learned that Qorvo has leveraged its strong technical strength and market insight to continuously launch innovative applications and make breakthroughs in the battery management system BMS. Its single-chip 20-string battery cell BMS solution provides an efficient, compact and safe solution for multi-string and multi-cell lithium battery power supply scenarios such as power tools and electric vehicles. Compared to traditional solutions, Qorvo's BMS chips offer the advantages of low power consumption, high accuracy, intelligence, and the integration of multiple functions on a single chip, greatly simplifying design complexity. At the same time, Qorvo is also committed to the wireless BMS field, combining wireless technology with BMS systems to provide customers with more choices. Built on technological innovation and market adaptability, Qorvo provides high-power, high-efficiency and high-performance solutions for a wide range of applications.