Battery monitoring circuit with storage of charge and discharge accumulation values accessible therefrom

DETAILED DESCRIPTION The present invention disclosed and claimed herein comprises a battery monitoring circuit for monitoring select parameters of a battery having positive and negative terminals.
The battery monitoring circuit includes a charge determination circuit for determining information relative to current input to the battery as function of time.
In association with the charge determination circuit is a charge accumulation register that is operable to store an accumulated charge value representing the amount of current input to the battery over time as determined by the charge determination circuit.
Also included is a charge determination circuit for determining information relative to the current output from the battery as a function of time.
Associated with the charge determination circuit is a discharge accumulation register for storing an accumulated discharge value representing the amount of current output from the battery as a function of time as determined by the discharge determination circuit.
An input/output interface is provided to allow an external system to access the charge accumulation register and discharge accumulation register and the information stored therein.
In another aspect of the present invention, the charge determination circuit includes a charge timer for determining the amount of time the charge determination circuit is operating, and the discharge determination circuit includes a discharge timer for determining the amount of time the discharge determination circuit is operating.
A discharge time register is operable to store information representing the accumulated time that the discharge timer is operating.
A charge time register is provided for storing information representing the accumulated times that the charge timer is operating.
Each of the charge and discharge time registers are accessible through the input/output interface.
In a further aspect of the present invention, a sense resistor is disposed in series with one of a positive and negative terminals of the battery and each of the charge and discharge determination devices comprises a voltage-to-frequency converter circuit