Energy harvesting news explores technologies that capture ambient energy—such as solar, thermal, and vibrational—to power low-consumption electronics. Advances in piezoelectric materials, flexible photovoltaics, and RF scavenging are enabling self-sustaining sensor nodes, wearables, and IoT devices. These innovations reduce reliance on batteries and extend device lifespans. For Electronics Weekly readers, energy harvesting developments reveal opportunities for efficient, maintenance-free electronics design, emphasizing sustainability and miniaturization in applications ranging from smart cities to medical implants, driving new product paradigms in the electronics industry.
A whole session was set aside for energy harvesting ICs at this week’s IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference in San Francisco. Described as “inductor-less capacitor-less”, a harvesting IC from Delft University of Technology and Fudan University connects to two harvesters simultaneously: one electromagnetic and the other piezoelectric. Both harvesters are on the same vibration-driven cantilever, resonant at 30Hz and outputting ...
Nexperia has introduced an inductor-less energy harvesting IC that is able to cold start with 12μW from 270mV. Called NEH7100BU, it can mediate between a harvesting power source, a USB charger, a battery (or capacitor) and the load. To maximise power extracted from photovoltaic cells, which have variable output impedance, and embedded hill-climbing algorithm homes-in on the best operating point ...
Dracula Technologies, the energy harvesting innovator, and retail tech specialist CoolR Group have hooked up on IoT products for the retail sector. By integrating Dracula’s LAYER OPV modules into CoolR’s VistaZ cameras, the two companies have created a hybrid offering combining batteries with Organic Photovoltaic (OPV) technology. The integration advances inventory management by enabling real-time inventory insights with retailers benefiting ...
Silicon Labs is aiming at battery-free harvested energy applications with xG22E, a family of wireless microcontrollers covering Bluetooth Low Energy, 802.15.4 or proprietary 2.4 GHz links. “As Silicon Labs’ most energy-efficient SoCs to date, all three will enable IoT device makers to build wireless devices for battery-optimised and battery-free devices that can harvest energy from external sources in their environments ...
There are a few ways to harvest 10μW from the environment but, perhaps, none so much fun as a generator based on a ‘drinking bird’ toy built by researchers in China. Dubbed a DB-THG (drinking-bird triboelectric hydrovoltaic generator), power is extracted from the movement of the bird by the rubbing action of different materials – think rubbing a balloon on ...
E-peas has created an energy harvesting IC specifically for hand-held remote controls and wireless keyboards equipped with small solar cells. A cold start is possible from an input voltage as low as 275mV if 5µW of power is available. There are two versions, which optimise loading of the photovoltaic source in two different ways to get the best out of ...
E-peas has created a power IC that can mediate between two energy harvesters, a 5V charger, a power store and a load. AEM13920 can work from any combination of two sources including: photo-voltaic cells, thermo-electric generators, RF energy harvesters or kinetic pulsed sources. “For instance, a remote control could have separate PV cells on its front and rear, to maintain ...
Mouser Electronics has signed a distribution partnership deal with Atmosic Technologies. The latter’s low power and energy harvesting wireless Blueooth SoCs and evaluation kits are used by tier one consumer brands, said the company. “With Atmosic products now in stock at Mouser, IoT product developers around the world have immediate access to their extremely low-power wireless portfolio,” said Andy Kerr, ...
Nexperia has created an energy harvesting IC for photovoltaic cells up to around 1mW, that automatically matches the cell to the battery – aiming to extract at least 80% of energy that the cell can produce for any given illumination. Harvesting range is 35µW to 2mW. Inside the IC, called NEH2000BY, power conversion is thorough a voltage-doubling capacitive dc-dc converter, ...
Gemns G100 is the latest finger-powered energy harvester from WePower Technologies – in this case, a push-button with built-in wireless IoT sensor node. Around 40mm in diameter and 70mm from end to end, it is designed to mount in a standard 22mm panel hole. “G100 is an integrated, self-contained Bluetooth LE RF switch solution,” the company told Electronics Weekly. “Within ...
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