KR20020045135A - Battery charger with energy level gauge - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: A battery charger having an energy level gauge is provided to reduce manufacturing costs by removing an EEPROM or a charging sense circuit from the inside of a battery part. CONSTITUTION: A notebook computer is formed with a battery part(20) and a main system(21). The battery part(20) has a chargeable battery(101) and an identification code(201). The chargeable battery(101) provides a signal to the main system(21). The main system(21) includes a BIOS(111), a keyboard(112), a battery charger(210), and a system management bus(114). The battery charger(210) has an energy level sense circuit. The identification code(201) is electrically connected to the battery charger(210) when the battery part(20) is installed in the main system(21). The battery charger(210) is formed with a charger(211) and an energy level gauge(212). The main system identifies a charging state of a battery by using a signal of the identification code(201). The signal of the identification code(201) includes a serial signal of a ROM.

Description

Battery Charger with Energy Level Gauge {BATTERY CHARGER WITH ENERGY LEVEL GAUGE}

The present invention relates to a battery charger of a notebook computer. In particular, it relates to a battery charger having an energy level gauge.

Portable devices such as notebook computers and PDAs are developing at low cost and high performance. In general, portable devices involve a rechargeable battery pack to facilitate transport and repeat use. Since the rechargeable battery pack is easily damaged during overcharging, in order to protect the battery pack and extend battery life, an energy level gauge is set within the battery pack to monitor relevant information such as the remaining capacity of the battery pack.

In FIG. 1, an existing notebook structure is shown in which the notebook computer comprises an existing main system 11 and an existing battery portion 10. The existing battery portion 10 has a battery pack 101 and an energy level gauge 102. The battery pack 101 is a rechargeable battery, typically a lithium ion-hydrogen or nickel metal-hydrogen rechargeable battery, and a battery level gauge 102 is built into the existing battery portion 10 to monitor the remaining capacity of the battery pack. Then, the monitoring results are returned to the existing main system 11. The structure of the existing main system 11 is similar to that of the notebook computer including the BIOS 111, the keyboard 112, the charger 113, and the system management bus (SM bus) 114. The energy level gauge 102 returns the sensed data through the existing battery portion 10 to the existing main system 11, notifying the state of charge of the battery portion 10 and helping to determine whether to continue charging the battery.

1 also describes the connection between an existing notebook computer and the battery compartment. The SM bus 114 shown in FIG. 1A is connected between the keyboard 112 and the charger 113, and the SM bus 114 shown in FIG. 1B is connected between the BIOS system 111 and the charger 113. . The difference between these two methods lies in the simple and easy embedding of the existing main system 11. That is, the existing main system 11 structure shown in FIG. 1A is expensive, and the existing main system 11 structure shown in FIG. 1B is low cost. However, the BIOS 111 requires more ROM from the CPU, thus lowering overall system performance.

FIG. 2 shows another existing embodiment of a notebook computer and a battery portion, the structure of which is similar to that of the embodiment shown in FIG. 1A. The only difference, however, lies in the existing battery portion having the feature that the energy level gauge 102 is replaced by an electrically erasable and programmable read only memory (EEPROM) 103. The remaining capacity information of the battery pack of the battery portion 10 is stored in the EEPROM 103 which can return the information to the existing main system 11 via the SM bus 114. This arrangement is low cost, but the keyboard 112 requires significant ROM from the CPU, thus degrading overall system performance. In addition, the keyboard 112 and BIOS 111 of the existing main system 11 are not standard accessory equipment, but are suitable for specific models of notebook computers.

The main objective of the present invention is to provide a battery charger with an energy level gauge, which eliminates the EEPROM or the charge sensing circuit disposed inside the battery part in order to lower the manufacturing cost.

Another object of the invention is to provide a battery charger with a built-in energy level gauge, which is arranged in the charging circuit of the main system. Therefore, during the manufacture of the charging circuit for the main system, only the additional circuit for the energy sensing function needs to be added, so that the manufacturing cost of the charging circuit will not be increased as before.

It is a further object of the present invention to provide a battery charger with an energy level gauge suitable for the construction of existing notebook computers. Therefore, there is no need to change the keyboard and BIOS to place the energy level gauge inside the notebook computer.

Another object of the invention is to provide a battery charger with an energy level gauge having the following characteristics. That is, the gauge should be implemented in a notebook computer architecture in a situation where system performance is maintained without occupying main system resources.

The present invention will solve the high cost and low performance problem of the existing main system and battery part by using a simple energy sensing circuit embedded in the battery charger of the main system to replace the high cost energy level gauge attached to the battery part.

The present invention further provides an energy level gauge for the battery charger to improve the operating performance of the main system.

The foregoing has outlined some of the deficiencies of the prior art and the advantages of the present invention. Other features, other advantages, and other embodiments of the present invention will become apparent from the drawings and the following paragraphs of construction and operation of the invention.

1 is a view showing the structure of a conventional notebook computer and a battery portion, Figure 1A is a first embodiment of the existing technology, Figure 1B is a view showing a second embodiment of the existing technology.

2 is a diagram of another embodiment of the structure of a conventional notebook computer and battery portion;

3 is a view of a battery charger with an energy level gauge in accordance with the present invention.

4 is a battery charger circuit diagram with an energy level gauge in accordance with the present invention.

(Reference number description)

10 ... Existing battery compartment 11 ... Existing main system

20 ... Battery part 21 ... Main system

101 ... Battery Pack 102 ... Energy Level Gauge

103 ... EEPROM 111 ... BIOS

112 ... Keyboard 113 ... Charger

114 ... System management bus (SM bus) 201 ... Identification code

210 ... battery charger

In Fig. 3 a preferred embodiment of a notebook computer according to the invention is shown. The notebook computer consists of a battery portion 20 and a main system 21. The battery portion 20 includes a rechargeable battery 101 and an identification code 201, which provides a signal to the main system 21. The EEPROM for storing the battery capacity state or the energy level gauge for sensing the current is not included in the battery portion 20 itself, so the manufacturing cost for the components of the battery portion 20 is greatly reduced. The main system 21 includes a BIOS 111, a keyboard 112, a battery charger 210 having an energy level gauge, and a system management bus (SM bus) 114. The present invention does not make any changes to the BIOS 111, keyboard 112, SM bus 114 of FIG. Therefore, the present invention has a low cost structure in which the BIOS does not need to send an output signal to the CPU for processing via the SM bus. This is because transmitting the output signal to the CPU degrades the overall system performance. The present invention does not have a performance problem as in FIG. 1B. Moreover, Figure 2 shows another embodiment of a conventional notebook computer and battery portion. Although the cost is minimized, in addition to the keyboard and BIOS not being standard equipment of a notebook computer, the keyboard 112 occupies the ROM space of the main system, thereby degrading system performance.

When the battery portion 20 is installed in the main system 21, an identification code 201 is electrically connected to the output of the battery charger 210 having an energy level sensing circuit, the information being connected to the SM bus 114. The main system 21 can be notified of the unique identification code 201 transmitted to the existing main system 11 via the respective main battery 11. The identification code 201 may be a flow number of a 64 bit long binary code or other binary code showing storage space. Since not all battery parts 20 of the present invention have an energy level gauge, there is no way to detect the percentage of electricity and the remaining capacity of the battery part 20 to report to the main system 21. In order to avoid charging the battery for multiple battery parts of the same main system 21, which can make the main system 21 indistinguishable from other battery parts and cause overcharging, the main system 21 is in a state of battery charge. The battery portion may be identified by a unique identification code 201 signal for identification.

The identification code 201 signal includes a serial signal of a ROM customized by the BIOS 111 or the keyboard 112. Because serial signals are used only for identification purposes, they do not degrade the performance of the entire system or consume much memory of the FOM. Of course in another embodiment, relevant information such as the electrical percentage and remaining capacity of the battery pack 101 may be stored in the serial signal of the BIOS 111 or in a user-defined ROM of the keyboard 112.

When the main system 21 confirms the battery charging by the identification code, information of the remaining capacity and the electric percentage is simultaneously obtained to determine the continuous battery charging. A temperature sensor 202 may be further included in the battery portion 20 for sensing the operating temperature of the battery portion 20 to prevent overheating of the battery portion 20.

4 is a detailed circuit diagram showing that the main system 21 further includes a transformer output 22, a system DC / DC converter 23, a pulse-width modulator (PWM) 24, and a shunt 25. . The transformer 22 provides a direct current for the operation of the main system 21, and the system DC / DC transformer 23 supplies high voltage currents suitable for the main system 21 and other components (such as the central processing unit). Convert to current. The pulse-width modulator 24 adjusts the electricity charged in the battery pack according to the signal from the battery charger 211, and the shunt 25 is disposed between the battery pack 101 and the battery charger 211 to prevent overcharge. Connected. The path of the system discharge circuit is indicated by (26), and the path of the system charge circuit is indicated by (27). This part is the same as the existing main system and will not be described anymore.

When the battery portion 20 is installed in the main system 21, the battery charger identifies the battery portion 20 by the identification code 201. The energy sensing circuit 212 can determine the electrical percentage and remaining capacity of the battery portion 20 by the current sensed by the SCL of the SM bus 114, or by the current sensing circuit 213, and the battery stored in the memory. The SDA can directly access relevant information on the electricity percentage and remaining capacity. The current sensing circuit 213 is an expansion circuit before the transformer output 22 of the circuit of the main system 21, moreover one of its ends is connected to the energy level sensing circuit 212, resulting in a transmission current to the current sensing circuit. Send back. The current sensing circuit 212 includes an oscillation resistor and a current sensor amplifier. The state of the charging circuit path 27 or the discharge circuit path 26 is determined by the status signal returned from the current sensing circuit 212. The battery charger 211 will charge the battery portion 20 because the relevant information regarding the remaining capacity and the electrical percentage can be accurately represented from the battery charger 211. Thus, the battery pack 20 can be extended without overcharging the battery life.

From the foregoing, the battery charger with an energy level gauge according to the present invention adds additional circuitry to the existing circuit of the existing main system 21, so there is no need to change the current structure of the main system and the protocol. Moreover, system information and system pulses sent from the SM bus 114 will not change or increase the loading of the main system 21 due to the energy level sensing circuitry. So it will not degrade system performance.

Although the invention has been described with reference to various embodiments, the description is not used in a limiting sense. Various modifications of the introduced embodiments and other embodiments of the invention will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art with reference to the present disclosure. Therefore, the appended claims will be considered to include such modifications and embodiments as fall within the scope of the invention as defined by the following claims and their equivalents.

The present invention will solve the high cost and low performance problem of the existing main system and battery part by using a simple energy sensing circuit embedded in the battery charger of the main system to replace the high cost energy level gauge attached to the battery part.

The present invention further provides an energy level gauge for the battery charger to improve the operating performance of the main system.

Claims (13)

A battery charger with an energy level gauge set in a portable data processing device for charging a rechargeable battery pack, The charger includes a charger, an energy level sensing circuit, and a current sensing circuit, The charger is electrically connected between the power source and the rechargeable battery pack to charge the rechargeable battery pack, The energy level sensing circuitry is built into the charger to sense the remaining capacity of the rechargeable battery pack, input the remaining capacity of the rechargeable battery pack into a portable data processing device, and And the current sensing circuit is electrically connected between a power supply and a current sensing circuit to check current strength and feed back a sensing result to the energy level sensing circuit. 10. The battery charger of claim 1, wherein the rechargeable battery pack has an identification code so that the portable data processing device can identify the rechargeable battery pack. 2. The battery charger of claim 1, wherein the current sense circuit comprises an oscillation resistor and a resistance sense amplifier. 2. The battery charger of claim 1, wherein the battery charger stops charging the rechargeable battery pack when the energy level sensing circuit senses a specified maximum voltage of the rechargeable battery pack. The energy level gauge of claim 1, wherein the battery charger stops charging the rechargeable battery pack when the remaining capacity of the rechargeable battery pack sensed by the energy level sensing circuit is greater than a specified maximum voltage. Equipped with a battery charger. The battery charger according to claim 1, wherein a system management bus (SM bus) is connected to a BIOS of the portable data processing device. The battery charger according to claim 1, wherein a system management bus (SM bus) is connected to a keyboard of the portable data processing device. A notebook computer having an optional electricity supply from a rechargeable battery pack or power source with an identification code, The notebook computer includes a monitor, a main system, an energy level sensing circuit and a current sensing circuit, The monitor displays an output image of the notebook computer, The main system includes a charging circuit electrically connected between the rechargeable battery pack and a power source for charging the rechargeable battery pack, and And the current sensing circuit is electrically connected between a power supply and an energy level sensing circuit to sense current strength and return the sensing result to the energy level sensing circuit. 9. The notebook computer of claim 8, wherein the current sense circuit further comprises an oscillation resistor and a current sense amplifier. 10. The notebook computer of claim 8, wherein the battery charger stops charging the rechargeable battery pack when the energy level sensing circuit senses the maximum specified voltage of the rechargeable battery pack. 9. The method of claim 8, wherein the battery charger stops charging the rechargeable battery pack when the remaining capacity of the rechargeable battery pack sensed by the energy level sensing circuit is greater than the maximum specified voltage of the rechargeable battery pack. Laptop computer. 9. The notebook computer of claim 8, wherein said system management bus (SM bus) is connected to a BIOS of said notebook computer. And the SM bus is connected to the keyboard of the notebook computer.