Interoperability of SMBus/I2C Battery Packs and System Implementation Considerations

The following information may help understand the compatibility of SMBus batteries with embedded systems and computer systems. Some systems may require the integration of I2C and SMBus devices. GlobTek offers a variety of lithium-ion and nickel-metal hydride battery pack products with integrated communication capabilities.

Smart Battery System (SBS): The industry standard for communication between battery packs and customer systems is the Smart Battery System (SBS). SBS includes over 100 commands, ranging from remaining capacity to manufacturer information to health status.

SBS is implemented using the SMBus protocol. SMBus is a command-oriented protocol. A typical SMBus interaction might look like this: Address byte: The host says, “Attention battery, I am talking to you!” Command byte: The host says, “Battery, please send me your remaining capacity.” Data byte: The battery replies by writing the remaining capacity to the data line.

I2C and SMBus: Both I2C and SMBus are serial protocols that use two wires (plus ground). Wire 1: Data, Wire 2: Clock. From a hardware perspective, they are essentially the same. From a protocol perspective, SMBus is a stricter implementation of I2C. SMBus specifies a set of commands and precise formats for master-slave interactions. The I2C protocol does not define the structure of interactions. If a system contains multiple I2C devices and one SMBus battery, typically all these devices can coexist on the same bus, but the responsible engineer needs to pay attention to how the system host interacts with each device. Additionally, if I2C and SMBus devices (slave and/or master) are used together, all bus timing should comply with SMBus specifications.

Clock Rates: I2C: 0 – 3.4MHz, SMBus: 10KHz – 100KHz (SMBus 3.0 allows up to 1MHz). Clock stretching timeout: I2C: No, allows indefinite clock stretching; SMBus: Yes, times out after 35 milliseconds. GlobTek offers standard off-the-shelf battery packs, which can be viewed at this link: https://www.globtek.com/r2/aWjTQj. Custom batteries can be provided with packaging solutions upon request.

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