User:J-r-invis/sandbox

Title: Battery Interface Specification

A Specification From the Mobile Industry

Component designers in all industries rely on technology specifications developed by a standards organization to improve interoperability between devices and provide the market with a common solution to a common problem. Prior to the development of the Battery Interface (BIF) Specification by the MIPI® Alliance, a 501(c)(6) non-profit consortium of companies with a common interest in the design of components integrated in mobile devices, there was no comprehensive battery communication interface standard for mobile devices.^[1] The MIPI Battery Interface Working Group developed and maintains the Specification to support a single-wire communication interface between the mobile terminal and both low-cost and “smart” battery designs in a potentially scalable system. It is suited for removable batteries as well as for embedded batteries. BIF improves mobile terminal safety and performance through monitoring and management of the battery device, sometimes referred to as a “slave device,” by the host processor, sometimes referred to as the “master device”—it defines comprehensive battery monitoring and control functions such as temperature sensing and enables access to essential data for safe battery operation, e.g. charging parameters. It implements a communication layer to support cryptographically secure battery authentication.^[1]

The first release of the Specification, version 1.0, the subject of a presentation to the battery industry by a representative of Nokia at the Battery Power Conference on 7 June 2013.^[2] The conference posted the presentation for future reference; see External Links below.

Multiple companies contributed to BIF v1.0, including Analog Devices, Infineon Technologies, Intel Corporation, Lattice Semiconductor Corporation, Nokia Corporation, Panasonic Corporation, Qualcomm Incorporated, Research In Motion (now BlackBerry), Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications, STMicroelectronics, ST-Ericsson, Texas Instruments Incorporated and Toshiba Corporation.^[3]

Other Industry Standards

Though previously the industry had no solution to address the unique requirements of the mobile industry, other battery interface standards exist that address the needs of different markets, such as Smart Battery System supporting the portable personal computer market, where batteries with very high capacities are common.

Industry Support

To date, several vendors have announced the availability of BIF IP blocks and various chip suppliers have created implementations that are at various phases of development. Companies that use the specification include Infineon, Microsoft, Mitsumi, Sharp, STMicroelectronics, and UNH-IOL, among others.

An "interop workshop" to connect different components using BIF was organized in January 2012 at the Panasonic facility in Bracknell, England, U.K. Recapping the event, David Woolf, of the University of New Hampshire InterOperability Lab Research and Development, wrote:

At the workshop, we collected several different mobile device (host) and battery interface (slave) chipsets together to ensure that each host/slave pair was interoperable. We ran a series of interoperability tests, ensuring that each host could properly identify, read from and configure each slave device. It was a successful proving ground for a technology that will have far reaching effect, potentially shipping in hundreds of millions of phones.

^[4]

Technical Details

BIF simplifies both the Host and Battery Pack design while reducing development costs throughout the mobile battery ecosystem as a result of enabling use of a single interface over a wide range of mobile device products.^[2]

Main Capabilities

Single-wire, open-drain communication interface.
Battery identification (including low-cost batteries)
Rapid battery presence and removal detection.
Single master device, multi-slave (up to 256 slave devices)
Scalable data rate up to 250 kbps (average), determined on a per-transaction basis
Up to 64 kB of addressable memory space per slave device
Interrupt capability defined
Generic temperature sensor, fuel gauge, NVM, GPIO, protocol and slave control functions defined and generic battery label, serial number, and charging-parameter objects defined to enable a generic software driver
Supports implementation of battery-pack authentication
Supports implementation of manufacturer defined functions and data objects

External Links

MIPI Alliance - standardization body for BIF and other mobile interfaces
- BIF v1.0 data sheet (Feb, 2012) (~423 KB)]
- BIF v1.1 spec brief (Jul, 2014)
- BIF QA (Feb, 2012) (~765 KB)
- BIF Whitepaper (Feb, 2012) (~279 KB)
- MIPI BIF Rule-based charging Whitepaper (Jan 2013) (~715 KB)
- Japanese BIF v1.0 Data Sheet (Feb, 2012) (~342 KB)
- Japanese BIF Whitepaper (Feb, 2012) (~922 KB)
- Japanese Document Figures (~146 KB) (translations to support Japanese documents)
Battery Power Conference 2013 Presentation by Nokia on Battery Interface (Infineon and ST-Ericsson listed as co-presenters)

References

^ ^a ^b "Battery Interface Specification Address Consumer and Manufacturers' Issues". Battery Power Magazine. Greenwood Village, CO: Webcom Communications Corporation. June 21, 2012. Retrieved August 7, 2014.
^ ^a ^b Conference program from Battery Power Conference 2013, Webcom Communications Corporation, retrieved August 7, 2014
^ "MIPI® Alliance Enables Smart, Safe, Performance-Enhanced Batteries for Mobile Devices" (Press release). Mobile World Congress, Barcelona, Spain: MIPI Alliance, Inc. February 27, 2012. Retrieved August 21, 2014.
^ "Testing the Limits Blog > MIPI Battery Interface Charges Up", EDN Network, UBM Tech, retrieved August 7, 2014