Electronic – Why put a voltage divider between a battery and the battery pin of an RTC

batteriesrtcvoltage

I bought a PCB module including a DS1307 real-time clock to evaluate if that RTC is right for the system I'm designing.

Here's part of the schematic:

The DS1307 works with a battery voltage between 2 V and 3.5 V. I use the module with a 3 V coin cell battery.

Resistors R37 and R38 make a voltage divider that turn the 3 V of the battery in about 2.5 V, and feed such voltage to the VBAT pin of the DS1307 real-time clock.

What's the use of such voltage divider? Why not connect the 3 V battery directly to the VBAT pin?

EDIT: I added the 5 V flag to the voltage live on the top of the picture.

Best Answer

If the system is powered from a 5 volt supply, the divider is necessary to limit the voltage at VBAT. The voltage after the diode D4 will be somewhere between 4 and 4.5 volts depending on the current and diode, which is above the 3.5 volt maximum.