Offline Battery Management in a Device

• US 20160363977A1
• Filed: 06/09/2015
• Published: 12/15/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 06/09/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Inventors: Wilhelmi, Ceceli Ann, Marquez, Ricardo, Huang, Ying, Guo, Wei
• Granted Patent: US 10,031,567 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/1632 External expansion units, e.g. docking stations
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/263 Arrangements for using multiple switchable power supplies, e.g. battery and AC G06F1/30 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/30 Means for acting in the event of power-supply failure or interruption, e.g. power-supply fluctuations for resetting only G06F1/24
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2200/1633 Protecting arrangement for the entire housing of the computer
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0202 Constructional details or processes of manufacture of the input device
• CPC Class Codes: H02J 7/0068 Battery or charger load switching, e.g. concurrent charging and load supply H02J7/0013 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H02J 9/06 with automatic change-over , e.g. UPS systems

Abstract

Techniques are described for battery management in a computing device. The described techniques may be implemented by a battery offline module that provides functionality to control utilization of a battery such as determining whether the battery is available to receive power from a power source. For instance, the battery offline module may receive an input requesting that a battery be taken offline, determine whether system conditions for taking the battery offline are met, and take the battery offline when the system conditions are met such that the battery is not capable of receiving power from a power source of the computing device. In some instances, the battery offline module may cause different powering and charging arrangements between multiple batteries of the computing device. By implementing the battery offline module in the computing device, battery utilization is controlled to improve battery life.

Claims

1. A method of controlling utilization of a primary and secondary battery of a computing device, the method comprising:

receiving an input at a battery offline module implemented at least partially in hardware, the input requesting that the primary battery of the computing device be taken offline such that the primary battery is not capable of receiving power from a power source of the computing device;

determining, by the battery offline module, whether one or more system conditions of the computing device have been met for taking the primary battery offline; and

responsive to a determination that the one or more system conditions have been met;

taking the primary battery offline such that the primary battery is not capable of receiving power from a power source of the computing device; and

causing the computing device to receive power from a secondary battery sufficient to operate the computing device.

2. A method as described in claim 1, wherein the input requesting that the primary battery of the computing device be taken offline includes a hardware signal intended to control operation of the primary battery.

3. A method as described in claim 1, wherein the input requesting that the primary battery of the computing device be taken offline is generated by an operating system of the computing device responsive to the operating system determining that the primary battery is to go offline.

4. A method as described in claim 1, wherein the one or more system conditions of the computing device include thermal or power conditions provided by respective subsystems of the computing device.

5. A method as described in claim 1, wherein the input requesting that the primary battery of the computing device be taken offline is configured to operate a battery switch of the battery offline module and wherein the taking the primary battery offline includes enabling the input to operate the battery switch responsive to the determination that the one or more system conditions have been met.

6. A method as described in claim 1, wherein the input requesting that the primary battery of the computing device be taken offline is configured to operate a battery offline switch of the battery offline module and further comprising preventing the input from being received at the battery offline switch responsive to a determination that the one or more system conditions have not been met.

7. A method as described in claim 6, wherein the preventing is caused by logic circuitry of the battery offline module.

8. A system comprising:

a battery;

charge/discharge control circuitry configured to control charging of the battery by a system power source;

a battery offline module configured to control whether the battery is available to receive power from the charge/discharge control circuitry responsive to;

an input requesting that the battery be taken offline; and

a determination of whether one or more system conditions of a computing device have been met for taking the battery offline.

9. A system as described in claim 8, wherein the one or more system conditions are based at least in part on a state of a secondary battery of the computing device.

10. A system as described in claim 8, wherein the battery offline module includes logic circuitry to perform the determination of whether the one or more system conditions of the computing device have been met for taking the battery offline.

11. A system as described in claim 10, wherein the battery offline module further includes a battery offline switch that takes the battery offline responsive to the logic circuitry outputting a determination that the one or more system conditions of the computing device have been met for taking the battery offline.

12. A system as described in claim 10, wherein the logic circuitry outputs the determination that the one or more system conditions of the computing device have been met responsive to the one or more system conditions qualifying the input.

13. A system as described in claim 8, wherein the input requesting that the battery be taken offline is received from a system embedded controller.

14. A system comprising:

a battery;

a system embedded controller (EC);

charge/discharge control circuitry configured to control charging of the battery by a system power source;

a battery offline module configured to switch the battery from an offline state in which the battery is not available to receive power from the charge/discharge control circuitry to an online state in which the battery is available to receive power from the charge/discharge control circuitry responsive to a determination that at least one input has not been received from the system embedded controller (EC) for at least a predefined amount of time.

15. A system as described in claim 14, wherein the at least one input is one of multiple periodic signals that operate to switch the battery between the offline state and the online state and wherein the predefined amount of time is an expected time frame between receiving the multiple periodic signals.

16. A system as described in claim 14, the battery offline module further configured to:

output a default input that controls a battery offline switch; and

switch to the online state by using the default input.

17. A system as described in claim 16, wherein the default input is used to switch to the online state when one or more system conditions are met.

18. A system as described in claim 14, wherein the battery offline module includes a one shot circuit that is configured to identify that the at least one input has not been received from the EC for at least a predefined amount of time.

19. A system as described in claim 14, wherein not receiving the at least one input for at least the predefined amount of time is due to a system failure in the computing device.

20. A system as described in claim 19, wherein the system failure includes the computing device being in lockup state.