Voltage judgment circuit and battery cell pack having the same

• US 6,091,226 A
• Filed: 03/10/1999
• Issued: 07/18/2000
• Est. Priority Date: 03/12/1998
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Renesas Electronics Corporation
• Original Assignee: NEC Corporation
• Inventors: Amano, Nobutaka
• Primary Examiner(s): Tso, Edward H.
• Assistant Examiner(s): TIBBITS, PIA FLORENCE
• Application Number:
  US09/265,780
• Time in Patent Office: 496 Days
• Field of Search: 320/116, 320/162, 327/77, 327/88
• US Class Current: 320/116
• CPC Class Codes: G01R 19/16542 for batteries charge condition monitoring in G01R31/36
• CPC Class Codes: G01R 31/396 Acquisition or processing of data for testing or for monitoring individual cells or groups of cells within a battery
• CPC Class Codes: G05F 3/265 using bipolar transistors only
• CPC Class Codes: H01M 10/48 Accumulators combined with arrangements for measuring, testing or indicating the condition of cells, e.g. the level or density of the electrolyte constructional details of current conducting connections for detecting conditions inside cells or batteries, e.g. details of voltage sensing terminals, H01M50/569
• CPC Class Codes: Y02E 60/10 Energy storage using batteries

Abstract

Disclosed herein is a voltage judgment circuit comprising one or more diodes inserted in the forward direction of a judgment voltage, a current extraction section for extracting a forward current of the diodes, and a comparison section for comparing an output current from the current extracting section with a specified current value to input the comparison results. According to the voltage judgment circuit of the present invention, the discharge after the charging can be prevented to perform the voltage judgment using a low consumption current with high accuracy. A battery cell pack having the above voltage judgment circuits also performs a similar judgment.

Claims

1. A voltage judgment circuit comprising one or more diodes connected in a forward direction of a voltage to be judged, a current extraction section for extracting a forward current of said diodes, a comparison section for comparing an output current from said current extracting section against a specified current and an output section for outputting a control signal based on the result of comparison.

2. The circuit as defined in claim 1, wherein said current extraction section comprises a first current mirror circuit having a first transistor in a reference side connected in series with said diodes and a second transistor in an output side.

3. The circuit as defined in claim 1, wherein said comparison section comprises a second current mirror circuit having a third transistor in a reference side thereof and a fourth transistor in an output side connected in series with said second transistor.

4. The circuit as defined in claim 1, wherein said diode is implemented by a transistor having the same structure as said first transistor.

5. A battery cell pack comprising a plurality of batteries connected in series, and a plurality of said voltage judgment circuits as defined in claim 1 arranged corresponding to the respective batteries for judging terminal voltages of said batteries.

6. The battery cell pack as defined in claim 5, wherein a plurality of said voltage judgment circuits are mounted on one chip.