DW01A Battery protection Chip

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DW01A Battery protection Chip

The DW01A chip is a battery protection device for a single cell Lithium Ion battery and it protects the
cell from over and under charging, reverse connection and short circuit. You can typically find this chip
on TP4056 breakout boards (Lithium ion charger chip).

Battery Protection

On the battery side, it protects the battery from over-voltage (charging) or under-voltage (discharging). If
the voltage goes too low you may not be able to recover the battery. If the voltage goes too high there is a
risk of thermal runaway.

Keeping a Lithium ion battery from charging to too high a voltage or too low a voltage ensures that the
battery is kept in a safe operating area.

This device is a back stop device with a high over-voltage and low under-voltage setting.

Load Protection

On the load side it protects from short circuits, high current, short circuit current and reverse charger
connection.

Tip: The correct usage of the DW01A is to include it as part of a battery pack. It has reduced
functionality when used on the TP4056 board.

DW01A Block Diagram

        [Source: The DW01A datasheet]

The DW01A requires an external dual FET to control the ground line to the battery. By using the FET, the ground
line is disconnected during current error conditions (Short circuit, over discharge, over charge). This isolates the
Lithium battery until the load is removed (in the case of a short circuit).

The DW01A also has extended voltage limits (above and below normal voltage charging values) to protect from
overcharging and overdischarging. It also has low standby current 3uA when inactive, so it does not drain the
battery significantly during storage.

DW01A Features
Charger input protection
The CS pin is connected to the negative terminal of the charger input (via a 1kâ-¦ resistor) and performs the
following functions:

 Short Circuit detector.

 Over current detector.
 Charger Detector.
 Reverse charger detection (overstress high current?).

Battery monitoring

VCC and GND are connected across the battery where two voltages are detected:

 Overcharge Detector (battery voltage too high).

 Overdischarge Detector (battery voltage too low).

Battery Over Current Protection

Protection is provided using the two control pins OD and OC (which stand for over discharging and over
charging respectively). These two controls attach to the gates of two MOSFETS and stop current flow to
the battery if there is a problem.

Protection levels

Overcharge protection voltage: 4.3V (typ) ± 50mV

Overcharge release voltage: 4.1V (typ) ± 50mV
Overdischarge protection voltage: 2.4V (typ) ± 100mV
Overdischarge release voltage: 3.0V (typ) ± 100mV

Overcurrent detection voltage: 0.15 (typ) ± 30mV

Short circuit detection voltage: 1.35V (typ).

Note: The above over current and short circuit voltages are measured across the on-resistance of the
MOSFET.

DW01A Datasheet
Download the battery protection IC datasheet here.

How the DW01A works

The crucial part of the DW01A operation is the controlled dual MOSFET (N Channel); Specifically the
RDS(ON) resistance of the N Channel MOSFET.
In the datasheet it states that " the threshold current for overcurrent detection is determined by the
turn-on resistance of the charge and discharge control MOSFETs. "

There are problems in designing a current detection device this way, because as it also says in the
datasheet:

" turn-on resistance of the MOSFET changes with temperature variation due to heat dissipation, It
changes with the voltage between gate and source as well "

It is designed this way because it is a very cheap method.

However there are three points to this:

 The threshold voltage levels fall outside the normal charging voltages of a battery charger, and so do not
interfere with the normal charging process.
 The exact short circuit current value does not matter (as long as it is reasonable i.e. not 100A! - it can be
made to be 3A (see calculations below).
 The current limit reduces as the MOSFET's selected R DS(ON) gets worse - this is a good; If you use a high
RDS(ON) value, the current needed to trigger the short circuit is smaller. Also increasing temperature
increases RDS(ON).

This is a fail safe device, so as long as the values chosen fall outside the normal operating state of the
charging battery, it will provide short circuit protection even if the exact charging-cut off value changes
with temperature and voltage.

You should simulate, analyse and test the MOSFET operation to make sure it is acceptable for your
application.

Dual MOSFET N Channel Datasheet

8025A MOSFET Datasheet

8205A MOSFET Current Limit

Using RDSON as the Current Limit
The current limiting voltage threshold is detected by a comparator, when the voltage at the CS pin reaches
150mV. The comparator voltage will be reached when the voltage drop across the resistance of the two (switched
on) MOSFETs reaches 150mV - this is caused by more current flowing through the two MOSFETS and is therefore
the voltage drop across 2 x RDS(ON).

You can find RDS(ON) values in Figure 6 of the datasheet for the 8205, which is labelled "Rdson On-Resistance(mΩ) vs
ID- Drain Current (A)" and shows the curves for various Vgs values.

Since the battery voltage is close to 4.5V using that curve gives R DS(ON) as 20mâ-¦ which results in a short circuit
current of 3.75A (0.15/(2*20e-3)).

When the battery discharges it will be closer to 2.5V giving R DS(ON)as 25mâ-¦ resulting in a short circuit current of
3A (0.15/(2*25e-3)).

Once triggered, the DW01A the discharge MOSFET (OD) is turned off. It is only released when the load is
removed.

Two Overcurrent Threshold levels

There are two over discharge values (the one above) 150mV and 1.35V. The reason for the second one is that
both are associated with activation delays. For the 150mV one the delay is 10ms, while for the second the delay is
5us.
So for an extremely large short circuit the activation delay is much faster.

When the short circuit current detector has been activated, you, must remove the load, before the DW01A allows
current to flow again (OC MOSFET turned on).

DW01A Circuit Schematic

Correct use of the DW01A
The circuit below shows how the DW01A chip is supposed to be used:

Typical circuit using the DW01A

      [Source: The DW01A datasheet]

It is in fact, supposed to be attached as part of battery pack making a single unit with the battery and the DW01A
chip.

This is true because of the following:

 The CS pin protects from reverse connecting of a charger.

 Voltage limits for over and under voltage detection are outside normal charging / discharged levels. They
are specified to be extreme values.
 Latchup protection when a charger is connected under over discharged condition.
 Operating current is so low it won't discharge the battery if left in place attached to the battery.

When used as part of a battery pack it provides protection from the charger connected to BATT+ and BATT-, and
in this configuration provides reverse polarity protection from plugging in a charger the wrong way round and
even plugging in a totally inappropriate and dangerous charger e.g. a NiCad or NiMh charger (do not try this).
TP4056 incorrect use of DW01A
I am emphasizing the above correct usage of the chip as it is not used in this way for the TP4056 breakout board
where it is used incorrectly (except for short circuit protection - but even that assumes the TP4056 is attached
permanently which is wrong unless power sharing is implemented).