Application Report

SWRA471 – December 2014

CC112X/CC120X On-Chip Battery Monitor

Fredrik Eriksen

ABSTRACT
This application report provides the necessary information in order to use the voltage sensor of the
CC112x and CC120x family. The voltage sensor can be used to monitor the supply and battery voltage
(VDD).

Contents
1 Acronyms Used in This Document ........................................................................................ 2
2 Digital Readout of Supply Voltage (VDD) .................................................................................. 2
3 Calibration Example ......................................................................................................... 3
4 References ................................................................................................................... 4
Appendix A CC120X Code for Digital Readout................................................................................ 5

List of Tables
1 Register Settings for Digital Readout Using CC112X ................................................................... 2
2 Register Settings for Digital Readout Using CC120X ................................................................... 3
3 ADC Value vs Supply Voltage ............................................................................................. 3

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SWRA471 – December 2014 CC112X/CC120X On-Chip Battery Monitor 1

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Acronyms Used in This Document www.ti.com

1 Acronyms Used in This Document

Acronym Description
ADC Analog-to-Digital Converter
DC Direct Current
IF Intermediate Frequency
IFAMP Intermediate Frequency Amplifier
IFADC Intermediate Frequency Analog-to-Digital Converter
RX Receive (mode)

2 Digital Readout of Supply Voltage (VDD)

2.1 Operation
The IFADC in the receive chain is used to convert the analog sensor voltage to a digital value, which can
be read from the CHFILT register.
In order to get a digital readout the following must be done:
• The chip must be in receive mode (RX).
• The DC filter must be disabled and the IF frequency set to zero. Otherwise the DC information is
filtered out.
• The IFAMP must be off and this is done with the chip set in debug mode. For details about debug
mode, see Section 2.2. Note that the chip needs to be reset (by issuing an SRES strobe) to get out of
debug mode.
• Optionally the DVGA_GAIN setting in the MDMCFG1 register can be adjusted to increase/decrease
the amplitude of the signal to prevent an overflow in the output value.
• Table 1 and Table 2 list the registers used to activate digital readout when using CC112x and CC120x,
respectively. For details, see code in Appendix A. All the SPI functions used in the code is found in the
CC112x and CC120x software examples ( [7] and [8]).

Table 1. Register Settings for Digital Readout Using CC112X

Register Value Comment
DCFILT_CFG 0x40 Turn off DCFILT
MDMCFG1 0x01 Only I-Channel
CHAN_BW 0x01 Channel filter on
FREQ_IF_CFG 0x00 Off
ATEST 0x2B Battery sensor on
ATEST_MODE 0x08 Battery sensor on
PA_IFAMP_TEST 0x01 FAMP to test module
Debug Mode
WOR_EVENT0_LSB 0x1F Put IFAMP in PD - Must run SXOFF after to effectuate

2 CC112X/CC120X On-Chip Battery Monitor SWRA471 – December 2014

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www.ti.com Digital Readout of Supply Voltage (VDD)

Table 2. Register Settings for Digital Readout Using CC120X

Register Value Comment
DCFILT_CFG 0x40 Turn off DCFILT
MDMCFG1 0x01 Only I-Channel
CHAN_BW 0x01 Channel filter on
FREQ_IF_CFG 0x00 Off
ATEST 0x2B Battery sensor on
ATEST_MODE 0x08 Battery sensor on
PA_IFAMP_TEST 0x01 FAMP to test module
Debug Mode
WOR_EVENT0_LSB 0x1F Put IFAMP in PD - Must run SXOFF after to effectuate

2.2 Debug Mode

In order to turn off the IFAMP the chip has to be set in Debug Mode. This is done by filling the TX FIFO
with a specific string and writing 0x01 to the BIST register. With the radio in debug mode the IFAMP can
be turned off for correct measurement of VDD. Note that the radio has to be reset to get out of debug
mode. Because of this the radio has to be reconfigured after exiting debug mode.

3 Calibration Example
The voltage offset in the ADC varies from chip to chip; therefore, it is necessary to do a calibration before
use.
Figure 1 shows that the digital readout is quite linear to the related voltage and a simple linear equation is
sufficient for coarse voltage measurement.

Figure 1. ADC Value vs Supply Voltage

Table 3. ADC Value vs Supply Voltage

Supply Voltage ADC Value
2.612 V 106300
2.804 V 107300
3.022 V 108700
3.199 V 110000
3.403 V 111500
3.603 V 114000

SWRA471 – December 2014 CC112X/CC120X On-Chip Battery Monitor 3

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References www.ti.com

The equation can be found by performing measurements across the wanted voltage range and make a
trend line as shown Table 3. The equation for the trend line can then be used in the software to calculate
the supply and battery voltage. The equation found in this example is:
Voltage = 0.0001 * ADCvalue - 7.9 (1)

4 References
1. CC1120 High-Performance RF Transceiver for Narrowband Systems Data Sheet (SWRS112)
2. CC1121 High-Performance Low-Power RF Transceiver Data Sheet (SWRS111)
3. CC1125 Ultra-High Performance RF Narrowband Transceiver Data Sheet (SWRS120)
4. CC112X/CC1175 Low-Power High Performance Sub-1 GHz RF Transceivers/Transmitter User's Guide
(SWRU295)
5. CC1200 Low-Power, High-Performance RF Transceiver Data Sheet (SWRS123)
6. CC120X Low-Power High Performance Sub-1 GHz RF Transceivers User's Guide (SWRU346)
7. CC112x Software Examples (http://www.ti.com/lit/zip/swrc219)
8. CC120x Software Examples (http://www.ti.com/lit/zip/swrc274)

4 CC112X/CC120X On-Chip Battery Monitor SWRA471 – December 2014

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Appendix A CC120X Code for Digital Readout

The following code is for CC120x, but can easily be rewritten for use with the CC112x.
/*******************************************************************************
* @fn voltageRead
*
* @brief Reads voltage sensor
*
* @param none
*
* @return none
*/
static float voltageRead(void) {
// Variables
uint8 RegValue = 0;
uint8 marcStatus;
uint8 writeByte;
float voltage = 0;

// String to put radio in debug mode

uint8 txBuffer[18] =
{0x0F,0x28,0x02,0x90,0x42,0x1B,0x7E,0x1F,0xFE,0xCD,0x06,0x1B,0x0E,0xA1,0x0E,0xA4,0x00,0x3F};

// Configure ADC
writeByte = 0x02;
cc120xSpiWriteReg( CC120X_IF_ADC2, &writeByte, 1);
writeByte = 0xEE;
cc120xSpiWriteReg( CC120X_IF_ADC1, &writeByte, 1);
writeByte = 0x10;
cc120xSpiWriteReg( CC120X_IF_ADC0, &writeByte, 1);

// Set SINGLE_ADC_EN to "Only I-channel" &0x1

// DVGA Gain to 6dB - This directly modifies the amplitude of the signal
// and can be used to get the signal within range together with the CHAN_BW register.
writeByte = 0x05;
cc120xSpiWriteReg( CC120X_MDMCFG1, &writeByte, 1);

// ADC Decimation factor max

writeByte = 0x88;
cc120xSpiWriteReg( CC120X_CHAN_BW, &writeByte, 1);

// Zero-IF
writeByte = 0x00;
cc120xSpiWriteReg( CC120X_IF_MIX_CFG, &writeByte, 1);

// Disable DC_FILT
writeByte = 0x40;
cc120xSpiWriteReg( CC120X_DCFILT_CFG, &writeByte, 1);

// Make sure CHFILT_BYPASS is not set

writeByte = 0x00;
cc120xSpiWriteReg( CC120X_MDMCFG0, &writeByte, 1);

// Route ATEST MUX to battmon

writeByte = 0x2B;
cc120xSpiWriteReg( CC120X_ATEST, &writeByte, 1);

// Set ATEST to battmon

writeByte = 0x08;
cc120xSpiWriteReg( CC120X_ATEST_MODE, &writeByte, 1);

// Enable test at IFAMP output

writeByte = 0x01;
cc120xSpiWriteReg( CC120X_PA_IFAMP_TEST, &writeByte, 1);

SWRA471 – December 2014 CC112X/CC120X On-Chip Battery Monitor 5

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Appendix A www.ti.com

// Set chip in RX
trxSpiCmdStrobe(CC120X_SRX);

// Read marcstate and wait until chip is in RX

do {
cc120xSpiReadReg(CC120X_MARCSTATE, &marcStatus, 1);
} while (marcStatus != 0x6D);

// Put radio in debug mode

// Write debug init to tx fifo
cc120xSpiWriteTxFifo(txBuffer,sizeof(txBuffer));

// Run code from FIFO

writeByte=0x01;
cc120xSpiWriteReg( CC120X_BIST, &writeByte, 1);

// Strobe IDLE
trxSpiCmdStrobe(CC120X_SIDLE);

// Set IF AMP in PD
writeByte=0x1F;
cc120xSpiWriteReg( CC120X_WOR_EVENT0_LSB, &writeByte, 1);

// Strobe SXOFF to copy command over

trxSpiCmdStrobe(CC120X_SXOFF);

// Turn off VCO to save power and eliminate voltage

// drop on the reference voltage from different settings.
writeByte=0xFF;
cc120xSpiWriteReg( CC120X_WOR_EVENT0_LSB, &writeByte, 1);

// Strobe SXOFF to copy command over

trxSpiCmdStrobe(CC120X_SFSTXON);

// Radio now in Debug Mode

// Wait until channel filter data is valid

do {
cc120xSpiReadReg(CC120X_CHFILT_I2, &RegValue, 1);
} while (!RegValue&0x08);

// Read ADC value from CHFILT_I registers

cc120xSpiReadReg(CC120X_CHFILT_I2, &RegValue, 1);
ADCValue_I = ((int32)RegValue) << 16;
cc120xSpiReadReg(CC120X_CHFILT_I1, &RegValue, 1);
ADCValue_I |= (((int32)RegValue) << 8) & 0x0000FF00;
cc120xSpiReadReg(CC120X_CHFILT_I0, &RegValue, 1);
ADCValue_I |= (int32)(RegValue) & 0x000000FF;

// Simple conversion of ADC value to voltage

voltage = (ADCValue_I * 0.0001) - 7.9;

// Return voltage
return voltage;

6 CC112X/CC120X On-Chip Battery Monitor SWRA471 – December 2014

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