Patent ID: 8361644

Claim:
A battery module, comprising: a housing; a stack of cell assemblies disposed in the housing, wherein each cell assembly includes: a battery cell having positive and negative terminals and a flexible packaging, the packaging including a fringe area where the packaging is sealed, the fringe area having a first side and an opposing second side, the positive and negative terminals being in the form of flexible tabs emanating from the fringe area between the first and second sides thereof; and an interconnect device including a non-electrically conductive substrate disposed about the fringe area, the substrate incorporating a first conductive trace adjacent the first side of the flexible packaging and a second conductive trace adjacent the second side of the flexible packaging, wherein the first conductive trace terminates in a first array of pins projecting from the substrate away from the first side of the flexible packaging and the second conductive trace terminates in a second array of pins projecting from the substrate away from the second side of the flexible packaging, and wherein the substrate includes at least one opening for passage of the tabs therethrough; wherein the positive tab is embedded in one of the first and second pin arrays and the negative tab is embedded in the other of the first and second pin arrays; the cell assemblies being serially connected together such that the positive tab from a given cell assembly in the midst of the stack of cell assemblies electrically contacts the negative tab of a first neighboring cell assembly and the negative tab from the given cell assembly electrically contacts the positive tab of a second neighboring cell assembly; and terminals mounted on the housing, the terminals being respectively electrically connected to at least one positive tab and one negative tab in the stack of cell assemblies.