SLUAAQ5 May 2024 BQ769142 , BQ76942 , BQ76952 , BQ76972
Low side gate driving is often easier to implement than high side driving. Since the source of the FET is connected to GND, all that is needed to turn the FET on is about 10V if the FET is an N-channel. However, since the source is connected to GND, when the FET is turned off, the battery becomes an isolated GND so the reference for communication is lost. While this can be overcome with isolating communication, this is often expensive and consumes a large amount of energy.
High side driving, while harder to implement, maintains that the GND reference so that the same is never lost between the battery and the system and allows easy communication and therefore better performance. High side gate driving is simple with a P-channel FET since the gate needs to be lowered below the pack voltage to turn on. However, P-type FETs have a naturally higher Rds,on than N-type FETs, so P-type FETs are not often used for these applications. N-type FETs do offer a lower Rds,on for high side driving. The catch is that the gate voltage must be brought higher than the battery pack voltage. This requires a power supply higher than the pack voltage as well as level shifters for control. Implementing this often requires additional circuitry which raises costs. However, the BQ769x2 family features a built-in charge pump and high side driver which allows high side driving with no additional cost or complexity to the user.