Crocus Technology Enhances Accuracy of Energy Metering Solutions

MILPITAS, Calif., May 24, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Crocus Technology Inc., developer of XtremeSense TMR sensors, today announced the release of a high accuracy energy metering solution with isolated current sensing and a digital output. The solution is capable of measuring power, voltage and current while providing 1,820 VPK isolation in AC or DC applications. The result is a smaller and more efficient design without the use of large current transformers. The solution is ideal for a range of smart devices such as power supply monitors, electric vehicle chargers, household appliances, motor control and smart lighting.

The solution consists of the Crocus' CT430 TMR isolated current sensor, Microchip's ATtiny426 microcontroller, Printed Circuit Board (PCB), design files, microcontroller firmware, Bill of Materials (BoM) list, user guide and relevant support for designing a fully functional power monitoring solution. The design solution has been verified to accurately read and quantize the voltage and current values prior to calculating the instantaneous and Root Mean Square (RMS) power components, active and reactive power, as well as power factor. These power values are stored in registers which can be accessed by an external microcontroller via the SPI interface. By offloading the design effort of measuring and calculating power, the Crocus metering solution simplifies the addition of metering capabilities to any smart device.

The key to precise power measurements is the CT430 current sensor which provides better than 1% current measurement accuracy over the –40 C to +125 C operating range. It is available in a small 16–lead SOIC–Wide package, eliminating the need for bulky current transformers and allowing for more compact designs. The CT430 solution can also be customized with different bus interfaces such as I2C, SENT and CAN. By leveraging the solution, manufacturers and designers can quickly develop accurate and compact power monitoring capabilities for their products. See the figure below for the system diagram of the Crocus reference design kit for power measurements.

"Being able to accurately measure power and communicate this data within a system continues to be a challenge for designers," said Tim Kaske Crocus Vice President, Sales & Marketing. "The Crocus solution with the CT430 current sensor provides improved accuracy over existing magnetic sensor based designs. With a validated design solution and a 12–week lead–time, OEM design customers are able to quickly integrate the energy metering solution into their end products."

Design files required for manufacturing or customizing this power meter PCB are available for download. https://crocus–technology.com/powermeter/.

Also available for download is the AN136 CT430 Power Measurement Module user guide, https://www.crocus–technology.com/wp–content/uploads/2022/05/AN136–CT430–Power–Measurement–Module–Rev0.0.pdf.

About Crocus Technology

Crocus Technology develops and manufactures state–of–the–art magnetic sensors based on its patented XtremeSense TMR sensor technology. Crocus' disruptive magnetic sensor technology brings significant advancements to IoT and smart devices, industrial, consumer, medical, and automotive electronics applications demanding high accuracy, high resolution, stable temperature performance, and low power consumption. Crocus is headquartered in Milpitas, California. To learn more about Crocus Technology and its leading–edge TMR technology, please visit www.crocus–technology.com.

For more information, please contact:

Crocus Technology
Email: info@crocus–technology.com

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/f66b8a85–82f7–4bd2–892b–6e901877f1d6


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Crocus Delivers the Future of High Precision, High Current Contactless Isolated Current Sense

MILPITAS, Calif., May 23, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Crocus Technology Inc., the leading supplier of disruptive TMR (Tunnel Magneto–Resistance) XtremeSense sensors, today announced the CT45x family of contactless isolated current sensors to enable high precision and high current measurements in a more simplified solution. Unlike existing solutions, the CT45x allows manufacturers to eliminate costly shields, concentrators or cores. The CT452 and CT453 offers contactless 0.7% accuracy, 1 MHz bandwidth, and better than –50 dB immunity to external magnetic fields without additional mechanical components. This combination of performance and accuracy enables customers to reduce their overall product size and weight which enables them to replace large and costly current sense modules with a small and simple solution.

As current requirements have been increasing so have the challenges of accurately measuring high currents, typically >200 A and often up to 2,000 A. Shunt resistors with isolated amplifiers are broadly used but present an issue with I2R losses and tend to be large and costly. Existing magnetic based solutions like Hall Effect and AMR are less accurate and have high temperature drift. The CT45x products are based on XtremeSense TMR technology that delivers the future with a high signal–to–noise ratio (SNR) contactless approach which can scale with the system requirements, high bandwidth and fast response time, common–model field rejection, combined with high accuracy measurements over temperature.

In addition, many applications now require very accurate current measurements in the milliamp range up to the 1,000 A range or more. Often this type of solution involves multiple current sensors to achieve the desired system performance with many design compromises and complexities. Using Crocus' XtremeSense TMR current sensors allows for a no–compromise and simple solution using a single CT45x sensor which provides a large dynamic range and a high SNR. For example, the CT45x is able to measure down to 500 mA resolution and up to 1,800 A while maintaining better than 0.7% accuracy.

The CT45x offers groundbreaking noise performance, as low as 0.55 mVRMS, to enable applications to sense small current levels and small changes or variations in current through a busbar. This performance is almost 10 times better than existing Hall Effect solutions. This results in a SNR (signal–to–noise ratio) as high as 77 dB for the CT45x measurement which allows the system to process higher resolution data with higher accuracy.

"With the introduction of the CT45x family of contactless current sense products, we now have a complete portfolio of products for our customers from small currents to larger currents," states Zack Deiri, President and CEO of Crocus Technology. "This product based on Crocus' cutting–edge TMR technology is the most exciting for us as the benefits of our XtremeSense TMR are addressing the needs of higher current applications that can't be met with existing solutions without compromises. Crocus is excited to be addressing new high current markets such as BMS, Inverters, DC/DC Converter and many others."

Product features and performance:

CT450 & CT452 (5 V version) & CT453 (3.3 V version)

Isolated Contactless Current Sensor

Capable of measuring currents from 5 mA to >2,000 A

Total output error 0.7% Full–Scale

300 ns response time, 1 MHz bandwidth

Available in six different configured field ranges

Protection capability with Over Field Detection (OFD)

Integrated Common Mode Field Rejection (CMFR) with >90% immunity (CT452/3)

Uniform magnetic field sensing (CT450)

Targeting applications in EV Chargers, Battery Management Systems (BMS), DC/DC Converters, 48–V system, Bidirectional Charging and AC/DC Inverters.

The CT450 is available in TSSOP–8 package. The CT452/3 are available in TSSOP–16 package For more information, please visit the product webpage:

CT450 https://crocus–technology.com/products/ct450/

CT452 https://crocus–technology.com/products/ct452/

CT453 https://crocus–technology.com/products/ct453/

About Crocus Technology

Crocus Technology develops and manufactures state–of–the–art magnetic sensors based on its patented XtremeSense TMR sensor technology. Crocus' disruptive magnetic sensor technology enables the highest sensitivity, the lowest power consumption and smallest size over a wide temperature range. Crocus is headquartered in Milpitas, California. For more information, please visit http://www.crocus–technology.com.

For more information, please contact:

Crocus Technology
Email: info@crocus–technology.com


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