Patent ID: 7759902

Claim:
A microcontroller comprising: a processor system including a data bus; a system management bus (SMBus) interface; a high voltage battery interface coupled to the processor system, wherein a battery to be coupled to the high voltage battery interface comprises a plurality of cells, wherein the high voltage battery interface includes a plurality of inputs to the microcontroller capable of operating in a range of 4 volts to 25 volts; and a battery management system to monitor the battery and to manage the battery based upon monitoring of the battery, wherein the battery management system includes a control system to control charging and discharging of the battery, wherein the control system includes a plurality of cell-balancing FETs coupled to the plurality of cells and to the data bus, wherein there is one cell-balancing FET among the plurality of cell-balancing FETs coupled to each cell of the plurality of cells, and wherein each cell balancing FET of the plurality of cell-balancing FETs is directly controlled by reprogrammable application software via a control register coupled to the data bus; and wherein the microcontroller is a single chip.