The SBS forum states that a smart battery must provide state of charge indications. Safety is a key design objective and the concept behind SBS is to place system intelligence inside the battery pack. The SBS battery thus communicates with the charge management chip in a closed loop. In spite of this digital supervision, most SBS chargers also rely on analog signals from the chemical battery to terminate the charge when the battery is full. Furthermore, redundant temperature sensing is added for safety reasons. Benchmarq was the first company to offer fuel gauge technology in 1. Today, many manufacturers offer integrated circuit IC chips in single wire and two wire systems, also known as System Management Bus SMBus. State of charge estimations in a smart battery commonly include coulomb counting, a theory that goes back 2. Charles Augustin de Coulomb first established the Coulomb Rule. Figure 1 illustrates the principle of coulomb counting, measuring in and out flowing energy. One coulomb 1. C per second is one ampere 1. A. Discharging a battery at 1. A for one hour equates to 3,6. C. Not to be confused with C rate. Figure 1 Principle of a fuel gauge based on coulomb counting. A circuit measures the in and out flowing energy the stored energy represents state of charge. One coulomb per second is one ampere 1. The Lazarus Project Brian Tyler Rapidshare Library. A. Courtesy of Cadex. Coulomb counting should be flawless but errors occur. If, for example, a battery was charged for 1 hour at 1 ampere, the same amount of energy should be available on discharge, and no battery can deliver this. Inefficiencies in charge acceptance, especially towards the end of charge and particularly if fast charged, reduces the energy efficiency. Losses also occur in storage and during discharge. The available energy is always less than what has been fed into the battery. Single wire Bus. The single wire system, also known as 1 Wire, communicates through one wire at low speed. Designed by Dallas Semiconductor Corp., the 1 Wire combines data and clock into one line for transmission the Manchester code, also known as phase coding, separates the data at the receiving end. For safety reasons, most batteries also run a separate wire for temperature sensing. Figure 2 shows the layout of a single wire system. Figure 2 Single wire system of a smart battery. A single wire provides data communication. For safety reasons, most batteries also feature a separate wire for temperature sensing. Courtesy of Cadex. The single wire system stores the battery code and tracks battery data that typically includes voltage, current, temperature and state of charge information. Because of the relatively low hardware cost, the single wire system is attractive for price sensitive devices such as measuring instruments, mobile phones, two way radios, cameras and scanners. Most single wire systems have their own protocol and use a customized charger. The Benchmarq single wire solution, for example, cannot measure the current directly state of health So. H measurement is only possible when marrying the host to a designated battery. System Management Bus. The System Management Bus SMBus represents a concerted effort to agree on one communications protocol and one set of data. Derived from I2. C, the DuracellIntel smart battery system was standardized in 1. I2. C Inter Integrated Circuit is a multi master, multi slave, single ended, serial computer bus invented by Philips Semiconductor. Figure 3 shows the layout of the two wire SMBus system. Figure 3 Two wire SMBus system. The SMBus works on a two wire system using a standardized communications protocol. This system lends itself to standardized state of charge and state of health measurements. Courtesy of Cadex. The philosophy behind the SMBus battery was to remove charge control from the charger and assign it to the battery. With a true SMBus system, the battery becomes the master and the charger the slave that obeys the command of the battery. This enables a universal charger to service present and future battery chemistries by applying correct charge algorithms. During the 1. 99. SMBus battery packs emerged, including the 3. Figure 4. Manufactured by Sony, Hitachi, GP Batteries and others, these interchangeable batteries were designed to power a broad range of portable devices, such as laptops and medical instruments. The idea was solid but standardization diverged as most manufacturers began building their own packs. To prevent unauthorized batteries from infiltrating the market, some manufacturers add a code to exclude other pack vendors. A few manufacturers go as far as to invalidate the battery when a given cycle count is reached. To avoid surprises, most of these systems inform the user of the pending end of life. Figure 4 3. 5 and 2. SMBus. Available in nickel and lithium based chemistries, these batteries power laptops, biomedical instruments and survey equipment. Non SMBus dumb versions with the same footprint are also available. Courtesy of Cadex. An SMBus battery contains permanent and temporary data. The battery manufacturer program the permanent data into the battery, which includes battery ID, battery type, manufacturers name, serial number and date of manufacture.