Many portable and hand-held applications, such as e-cigarettes, gimbals, Bluetooth speakers, and point-of-sale machines, draw their power from a 2-series cell battery and must also be USB compliant. This poses design challenges, as batteries are typically expected to maintain a long charge, but the design cannot be crowded with multiple components. The ideal solution would include bidirectional operation, cell balancing, and appropriate protection features.

Our new article, A Charger IC, N Kinds of Applications, discusses how the MP2639A is a natural pick because of its functional diversity, control flexibility, and high reliability. The MP2639A is a fully integrated and flexible battery charge management IC that can charge two cells in series from a 5V power supply with up to 15W of power from a USB-C port.

Originally published in Bodo's Power Systems (page 36).