Texas Instruments has launched two new battery fuel gauges designed to squeeze more life out of your battery by thinking a little smarter about how you use it.
The new BQ41Z90 and BQ41Z50 are built around TI’s Dynamic Z-Track™, a predictive battery model that doesn’t just react to power usage, it learns from it. By tracking how the battery performs in real-world conditions, even when the load isn’t consistent, these chips can estimate state-of-charge and state-of-health with around 1% accuracy.
That might not sound like much, but in battery management, it’s a big deal. That extra accuracy translates into up to 30% more usable runtime, because you're no longer building in as much headroom "just in case."
Whether it’s a laptop finishing a heavy AI workload or an e-bike heading uphill, loads can shift fast, and traditional fuel gauges aren’t great at keeping up. That’s where the predictive nature of Dynamic Z-Track helps. It updates in real time and adapts on the fly, meaning devices don’t get caught off guard by sudden drops in capacity.
“Traditional monitoring often falls short when usage is unpredictable,” said Yevgen Barsukov, TI Fellow and head of BMS algorithm development. “This approach helps deliver reliable estimates, even under erratic loads, and gives users a better handle on battery aging and actual run time.”
The BQ41Z90 isn’t just a fuel gauge, it also packs in protection and monitoring features, making it the first single-chip solution for 3- to 16-cell Li-ion packs. That integration can help shrink board space by as much as 25%. The BQ41Z50 is aimed at smaller 2- to 4-cell designs but brings the same tracking benefits.
Both devices are available now through TI.com, along with evaluation modules and simulation tools to get started.
Compare live prices, stock levels, lead time, and availability of both parts with oemsecrets.com.
Learn more and read the original announcement here.
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