A new, highly configurable battery charger controller capable of charging batteries of any chemistry, featuring cell balancing capabilities and super-capacitor charging has been announced by Microchip. The device is also well suited for any DC-DC application as it supports Flyback, Boost, SEPIC, and Ćuk topologies, and can be used in LED lighting and other low-side switch PWM applications.

The power of the device lies in the combination of an 8-bit PIC microcontroller and an analog PWM controller in one package. Two independent voltage and current control loops can be configured with separate feedback networks, and separate references. Any voltage, current, temperature, or duration can be used to trigger a transition to a new portion of the charge profile.

Actually there are two devices, the MCP19124 and MCP19125, where the last one has four I/O pins more than the first. They are similar to their elder brothers MCP19114/5, but with an extra voltage control loop.

The inconvenience of such a complicated device is the datasheet of 236 pages that the user must read from beginning to end.