Abstract: A battery-cell protection system includes a processor, a wake-up circuit, and a shunt or isolation switch. The processor responds to voltages from cells in a battery by detecting any of the voltages being less than or equal to a predetermined threshold voltage. The processor samples cell voltages at a fast sampling rate and compares the sampled voltages to a predetermined threshold value. The processor further identifies any cell having an associated voltage that is less than or equal to the predetermined threshold voltage. The wake-up circuit responds to a current load from the battery by activating the processor. The shunt switch responds to the identification of the cell by selectively electrically shunting the identified cell to allow the other cells of the battery to continue to supply power to a connected load. The monitoring and identification of cells are performed in parallel to rapidly monitor all of the cells at once.