Battery pack system
AssigneeEVchip Energy Ltd.
InventorAvraham Ganor
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A source of environmental pollution is the burning of fuel by the transportation vehicles (e.g., cars, trucks). The use of electric vehicles (EVs) is perceived as an essential step towards better utilization of energy. Current EVs make use of an electric engine and a battery pack that provides energy to that engine. The technology of electric engines is well developed because of the common use of such engines in trains, submarines and industrial facilities. But, while the battery packs used in EVs have made a lot of progress in the last couple of years, these battery packs still have problems. These battery packs are expansive, heavy, and limited in the amount of energy that they can provide. This obstacle is a major factor that limits the use of EVs today in the mass market. Described herein is an improved EV battery pack system.
Claims15
A switcher chip for use in interconnecting a set of cells, comprising:
- a main negative terminal;
- a cascading terminal;
- a main positive terminal;
- a plurality of cell terminals;
- and
- a plurality of switches, wherein
- the switcher chip is configured such that:
- when a set of cells are connected to the switcher chip via the plurality of cell terminals and a first subset of the plurality of switches are closed and the remainder of the switches are open, the set of cells are connected in parallel with each other and current is able to flow in the main negative terminal but is not able to flow in the cascading terminal,
- when a set of cells are connected to the switcher chip via the plurality of cell terminals and a second subset of the plurality of switches are closed and the remainder of the switches are open, the set of cells are connected in series with each other and current is able to flow in the main negative terminal but is not able to flow in the cascading terminal,
- when a set of cells are connected to the switcher chip via the plurality of cell terminals and a third subset of the plurality of switches are closed and the remainder of the switches are open, at least two of the cells in the set of cells are connected in series with each other and current is able to flow in the cascading terminal but is not able to flow in the main negative terminal,
- when a set of cells are connected to the switcher chip via the plurality of cell terminals and a fourth subset of the plurality of switches are closed and the remainder of the switches are open, a subset set of cells are connected in parallel with each other, at least one cell is electrically disconnected from each of the other cells, and current is able to flow in the main negative terminal but is not able to flow in the cascading terminal, and
- when a set of cells are connected to the switcher chip via the plurality of cell terminals and a fifth subset of the plurality of switches are closed and the remainder of the switches are open, a subset set of cells are connected in series with each other and at least one cell from the set is electrically disconnected from each of the other cells of the set.
A battery module, comprising:
- a switcher chip comprising:
- a plurality of switches, a main positive terminal, a main negative terminal, and a cascading terminal;
- and
- a set of cells, the set of cells comprising:
- (i) a first cell having a positive terminal and a negative terminal, the positive terminal being connected to a first cell terminal of the switcher chip and the negative terminal being connected to a second cell terminal of the switcher chip, and
- (ii) a second cell having a positive terminal and a negative terminal, the positive terminal is connected to a third cell terminal of the switcher chip and the negative terminal is connected to a fourth cell terminal of the switcher chip, wherein
- the switcher chip is operable to:
- (i) configure the switches such that (a) the cells are connected in series, (b) current is able to flow out of the switcher chip via the main positive terminal, and (c) current is able to flow into the switcher chip via the main negative terminal but is not able to flow into the switcher chip via the cascading terminal,
- (ii) configure the switches such that (a) the cells are connected in series and (b) current is able to flow into the switcher chip via the cascading terminal but is not able to flow into the switcher chip via the main negative terminal, and
- (iii) configure the switches such that (a) the cells are connected in parallel, (b) current is able to flow out of the switcher chip via the main positive terminal, and (c) current is able to flow into the switcher chip via the main negative terminal but is not able to flow into the switcher chip via the cascading terminal.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.